COLUMN: Becoming a taco one bean at a time

If you are what you eat, I’m a tortilla – I’ve only eaten one for 80, 90, 120, maybe even 150 days in a row. It’s not that distinctive tortilla taste that keeps me coming back, it’s because tortillas are ultra-accepting of other foods – they play nice – and I’m a fan of tolerance. Even though I may be keeping the tortilla industry alive right now, I’m pretty sure I could replace tortillas with any wrapper-like substance. Maybe paper towels – just roll my egg/sausage/cheese or black bean/meat/cheese filling into two or three sheets of Bounty Fun Prints Easter Bunny edition. But I’m afraid the fiber content of the paper would wreck havoc on my digestive system. That’s not entirely true, either. After four years of eating expired, cheap or processed garbage, my digestive tract is like Superman without the Kryptonite – it has no natural weakness, unless there’s some made-up food that conveniently only exists on some bull**** planet no one’s ever heard of. The truth about eating paper towels on a regular basis is, I’m not entirely sure I want to find an origami whooping crane swimming around in my toilet bowl. It would make for a good YouTube video, though. And worse, it could be a miniature, paper mache bust of TV’s Wink Martindale, but at least I could sell that on eBay to some senile geriatric who loved “Tic Tac Dough.” When it comes to my eating habits, nothing would surprise me – paper towels, a strict diet of garlic dill pickles sandwiched between Nilla Wafers, aluminum cans or steak and bananas blended together and fried in bacon grease. My main problem, like anyone, is I’m too lazy to worry about quality. No layering of the flavors in a meal to ensure the coriander, garlic and nutmeg smack the palette in a pleasurable succession. And I don’t care about a balance of textures – “Yes, the crunch is very nice here. It’s balanced well by the creaminess of the fancy French shiz.” I’m lucky if I can let food get lukewarm before I start throwing fake cheese – singles are delicious, but share more properties with rubber than any dairy product – on it and stuffing it into a tortilla. In my nutritional world, the tortilla is more delivery device than food. Tortillas make food portable. They make a burrito look like a football, one that can be used to run the West Coast offense at the park before settling down to consume a well-mixed treat – it’s my belief all foods should be aerodynamic enough to take flight in an aesthetic, spiraling pattern. Tortillas virtually eliminate the need to work with silverware, and thank God for that. I’ve never been good with simple tools. Can’t crack oysters with rocks. Unable to use incline planes to my advantage when loading heavy objects into the beds of trucks. Tend to cry every time I encounter a large, stone wheel. So, given my silverware impediment, the tortilla allows me to eat efficiently, cleanly and safely – forks are sharp and incredibly hard to get out of one’s thigh after a violent stab at a bratwurst misses the mark. Also, I don’t have to look as ridiculous as Gary Coleman in a pickup basketball game when trying to use my utensils in public. But for everything the tortilla has done for me, it did heavily contribute to a very dark time in my life, one where my whole existence spiraled into a black bean, meat and cheese purgatory of gastro-intestinal torture. In English this time, dammit: I was once addicted to soft tacos – “Hi, my name is Dave, and I’m a tacoholic.” “Hi, Dave.” Black beans, ground beef and cheese. Pinto beans, chicken breast and cheese. Red beans, steak and cheese. Kidney beans, shredded beef and cheese. Any combination of beans, meat and cheese for 10 or 12 straight days – sometimes two times a day. “I can’t stop. I can’t stop doing it,” I said into my cell phone, on the verge of tears. “Can’t stop doing what? Is it the (we’ll say stuffed animal fetish, because we can’t print what was really said) again?” my friend replied. “Worse. Much worse.” “Cheap whiskey? Drugs? Reruns of ‘Mama’s Family’?” “Worse. Worse. And, hey, just what the hell is wrong with ‘Mama’s Family’? Vicki Lawrence is a saint.” “Wrap this little dialog bit up. It’s bombing, and your readers are losing interest.” “OK. It’s so bad you’d never guess it anyway. It’s …” I paused and sniffled for dramatic effect, “tacos.” “You’re a dumb ass.” Click. At least I was talking to people then. Later on, I was trapped in a vicious cycle of taco consumption and violent taco napping, only to be awakened some hours later by gut-wrenching taco withdrawals. Isolated from my friends, from my family. Sequestered from reality, trapped in a haze of packets of 33-cent, reduced-sodium taco seasoning. With copious amounts of self loathing for not being able to overthrow my harsh, beefy-cheesy master and end my south-of-the-border enslavement. I was using cheap baked beans, corned beef or whatever I could beg, steal or borrow to get my fix. When I wasn’t eating tacos, I was constantly itchy, a product of the cumin and chili powder accumulated on my neck and arms. And the worst part, the taco dreams. No amount of caffeine can keep the body awake after four soft tacos. No amount of mental toughness can prepare you for the depths of insanity that are taco dreams. No man, woman or child should have to endure such a twisted, torturous hell. Have you ever been cornered by a 200-pound soft taco waving a large kitchen knife and screaming, “You never loved me and now you’ll pay, you bastard!”? Or been caught in some state of eroticism involving you and a pile of shredded beef? Or been chased by the Taco Bell dog, only to sink into a bubbling vat of black beans that took you to a magical world of sombreros and brightly-colored panchos, where you were beaten to death with neon “Fresh Mexican Food” signs? Feel blessed. I know what you’re all saying, that’s just silly. What? I was counting on you all saying something like, “How did you ever kick the habit?” so I could smoothly transition into something else. Well, don’t be helpful, then. See if I care. After a tear-filled intervention where I almost smashed a vase of flowers over my little sister’s head, I quit tacos cold turkey. Thanks to my new addiction, peanut butter and bananas, I will never be dependent on beans, meat and cheese for my happiness ever again. And all of that without having to go on VH1’s new reality sequel, “Celebrity Rehab II: Quitting Cold Turkey, with Dr. Drew.” I’m glad, because I’m sure if I’d have been on the show, there was a 100 percent chance I’d go crawling back to tacos just to numb me enough to keep myself from violently attacking Kirstie Alley, who I hear is addicted to savagely devouring her offspring.

-David Baker is in a sad mental state, completely out of his goddamn mind and should be handled with extreme caution and a hell of a lot of salsa. Comments and questions can be sent to da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu