Everything’s legal in Mehico. It’s the American way.

My friend Dave just got back from Mehico, so he came over tonight with a bottle of tequila. Not just any tequila—agave tequila, 500 pesos a bottle (I think that’s like $50). It was in a big fancy jug sealed with wax and had a cork stopper. He peeled off the wax, uncorked it (allowing me to smell the cork, as all fine tequila aficionados obviously do) and poured two shots. I put the Mehico music channel on the digital cable so we could recreate the magical south of the border atmosphere in my central Jersey living room. It was perfect—a mariachi band playing, expensive booze and me and Dave rrrrrrolling our “r”’s just like they do in Mehico. All we needed were a couple of sombreros and a burro to complete the picture. As I brought the glass to my lips, my brain swirled with anticipation at what this premium agave would taste like.

Guess what. It tasted like friggin tequila. He could have saved 40 bucks and brought over a bottle of Pepe Lopez.

However, in addition to tasting like tequila, it acted like tequila. I got buzzed pretty quickly. I was Super Hero Tequila man brimming with wonderful anecdotes about my zit. All my talking must have made Dave hungry, because he suggested that we “get out of this fuckin house and get some fuckin food”. So we did. In the spirit of the night we decided to get some Mehican food. But first, we needed beer. Red Bank is one of those towns where you walk to wherever you need to go. We walked to the liquor store. It must have been Street Fest night or something, cause there were people singing songs and playing guitars all over the place. We listened to some dude butcher Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” then came to a group of old ladies singing old lady songs. They were all wearing white shirts and jeans—the exact same thing I had on—so Dave suggested that I join them. I did not, for I have always believed that nothing positive can happen when a man drunk on tequila crashes an old lady choir.

We got our beer (six of Red Stripe, six of Corona) and headed over to Carlos O’Connors, the restaurant where Carlos himself once told my friend Kenny that it was OK to spark up a joint before dinner. I ate my weight in guacamole and chimichangas. I was so buzzed after the meal that I asked the waitress where our fortune cookies were. She got a hoot out of that one. So did the rest of the place, because the air conditioning unit clicked off right before I said it, leaving a gaping pause of silence for me to be an idiot.

We paid the check, making sure to leave our non-fortune-cookie-bearing waitress a generous tip, and bolted. There was a line of people outside waiting to get in to the place and as we passed them every single person stared in disgusted horror at my zit. We got back to my house relatively unscathed and promptly began drinking more tequila. I mean agave. Viva los Mehico.

 

Side note, 8/30 - Must have been pretty good tequila. Not even a whisper of a hangover on Sunday. Or maybe it was the spacing of the shots over an eight-hour period...