The Wheels-Off Theologian Finally Finds Some Decent Mexican Food Around Here

 

I don’t do this too often any more, because….well, if you don’t have something nice to say, and all that. But I’d like to give the FB world a quick review of a place where we ate Saturday. I freely admit that living in San Antonio for 15 years definitely sharpened my taste for Mexican food (or, as North Texas white people put it, made me a “Mexican food snob”). No amount of words can truly describe the disappointment of moving back here 11 years ago and learning that it’s impossible to find good Mexican food. The best place we had found heretofore was a place in Oak Cliff introduced to me by my boss at the time. I do love Ellis County, but it’s the whitest county in North Texas for sure, and when that comes to Mexican food it means nothing good. What’s worse, the folks moving here from California and other foreign places are influencing our local grocery store to stock made-up Hippie White People Fare like “peach mango salsa,” whatever that is. North Texas has been just a wasteland when it comes to this category of food.

 

But my wife and I stumbled upon a rather decent place Saturday. It’s called Tio Tony’s, in Midlothian. It’s a low-budget affair; they’ve spent precious little on ambience and the restaurant is unassuming and, well, very “Midlothian”-looking. But we were pleasantly surprised. For starters, the salsa was great. This seems to be the hardest thing in the world to get right, for some reason….but it was a fine combination of taste and heat that grew better with each bite. The flour tortillas were homemade, which is a “must” that is also rare in these parts (no matter what they tell you, most of these spots do NOT have homemade tortillas). I had the fajitas, mostly because it’s hard to really mess that up (unless you’re Chili’s) and I didn’t want to gamble. The meat was definitely seasoned by someone who shops at one of those street-level tiendas; it was not subtle, but quite forward in its excellence. The service was incredible; the waitstaff were attentive and courteous, and evidently proud of their establishment (which they should be). Where service is concerned, I have to give this restaurant high marks in the CPWF (COVID PANTS-WETTING FACTOR). They were careful without being overly authoritarian, and the sense of panic we usually see in the city was not present. They seemed to understand that a bit of care and courtesy goes a long way to preventing problems here, rather than moralistic virtue-signaling about how compliant they are with ever-changing rules. I admit that I did not dive in and gamble with a more challenging menu item like rellenos or enchiladas (and I mean “challenging” in the sense that lots of other folks around here have a hard time with these), so I am admittedly giving a review of a one-time experience with a relatively easy menu item. But my wife was equally impressed, and she is like me in missing San Antonio’s superiority where food is concerned. The bell peppers and onions (which I normally do not like) were grilled to perfection.

 

Parking was ample, and the location of the restaurant wasn’t that difficult to find. Prices were reasonable, bordering on really cheap. If you have Weird Communist Hippie Food Allergies That Didn’t Exist Twenty Years Ago, you’ll be disappointed that these folks are old-school and have composed a menu that mercifully disregards such nonsense. I’m sure there’s some peach mango gluten-free eco-friendly mask-wearing Prius-driving salsa at HEB for you, if that’s the case. Where Mexican food is concerned, my heart will remain in San Antonio….but Tio Tony’s was a nice compromise to remind us that it’s possible to get this far north and enjoy good food.

A Nation of Karens

The earnest young lady whips out her pen and pad and begins furiously writing my name. My heart sinks, knowing that the minute she turns that piece of paper into our 4^th grade teacher, Mrs. Lynch, I will have an easily defined case of Detention Hall. My infraction? Walking on the wrong side of the laminated line in the hallway at Edison Elementary School back in the 1970s.

Throughout the years, she has gone by many names, this earnest young lady. She has sometimes been called Suzy the Hall Monitor, as was the case in Mike Judge’s excellent satire series King of the Hill. She has sometimes emerged as Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons, the eternal do-gooder who cannot tolerate Bart’s transgressive nature. For our day and time, she proudly bears the moniker of Karen.

And she’s got your number.

Karen, you see, loves the rules. What was missing from Karen’s life before COVID-19 was the ominous cloud of arbitrary rules imposed by questionable authority. It was occasionally even miserable for her: so many people were doing what they wanted, when they wanted. For years, she carried neither pad nor pen as she did in elementary school, but she nonetheless pursed her lips in disapproval whenever some sinner passed her on the highway and perhaps drove a bit over the speed limit. She clenched her jaws tightly together when some scofflaw dared to put his recyclables in the wrong bin and went unpunished. She shook her head in vigorous judgment if her neighbor’s house wasn’t up to HOA code. What the world needed, in Karen’s mind, was a few more Clay Jenkinses to fabricate rules out of the whole cloth of crisis rather than Constitution. What was needed, in Karen’s view, was punishment. And now, a full-grown woman, Karen is not about to waste this opportunity to put all her years of hall-monitoring to work.

You see, somewhere, somehow, in some small way, someone is free, despite the ever-changing “authority” of Science^TM! Someone is out there buying whatever he wants at a store, despite the “authority” of Jenkins….or Abbott….or Trump…..or, let’s face it, Karen. Someone is enjoying his constitutionally guaranteed freedom to assemble with whom he chooses. Someone has the unmitigated gall to walk into Home Depot and buy 2-cycle fuel for his weedeater. Someone is putting gas in his car without wearing that universal symbol of Karenhood, the medical mask. And Karen is having none of it. If Karen had been around France during WWII, she would have laid down her rifle before the advancing German army, then looked around for any French resistance fighters to turn in to her new overlords. You don't count on Karen to forge a nation, save a Republic, or stand for liberty. There's risk involved in those things, and Karen is opposed to risk. Her hairdo looks like a helmet for a reason.

Her pen and pad are gone, but she yanks her smarphone from her purse like a gunslinger from the Old West. She calls the “authorities,” hoping to see Hard Cold Justice rain down on the transgressors boldly going about the business of free people. The only harm she experiences from the blatant exercise of freedom is the permanent frown lines etched into her steely, schaeudenfraude smile of ice. But she’s not about to let the offenders slide. With the week-to-week change in “rules” and “authority” and “executive orders,” now is Karen’s time. She has been preparing for this her whole life. Nor is she alone.

It turns out that we are a nation of Karens--hall monitors, peering suspiciously out our window blinds at our neighbors...waiting to write them a detention slip if they refuse to cower in terror in their homes like we do...calling them out because they do not grovel obsequiously at the cold hand of the principal's authority, never realizing that we ourselves have always been the principal. Detention Halls will come and go, but Karen will always remain—pointedly reminding us that the authority she has fraudulently borrowed from us has a shelf life as short as her attention span.

But right now, her attention is on you. 

Top Five Personalities You'll Meet On Facebook During A Pandemic

Everyone throughout history has always known that when you’re in the middle of a plague, the thing to do is to go straight to Facebook and post your thoughts about it. This pandemic timed itself for Lent, during which season I abandoned Twitter, but I have kept up with the Facebook crowd and it is now possible to organize almost everyone into one of five categories. Now this doesn’t mean there isn’t some overlap, mind you: just that, in general, these are the five personalities you are most likely to meet during Pandemic Posting Days. Which one are you? Which are your friends? Whatever dopey Facebook game you’re playing right now isn’t any less entertaining than this, so read it (from at least 6 feet away).

5.            The Newspaper Reporter

               This one hasn’t had a lick of journalism training. She likely doesn’t know the difference between a “primary” and “secondary” source. In fact, her entire definition of “research” is “stuff I read on the internet.” When Governor Abbott issued his executive order yesterday, she didn’t bother downloading it directly and reading it; she simply forwarded the CNN.com article about it. She wants you to know that she’s “up” on the news. She has it down. She may not know the difference between “news” and “nonsense,” but she gets a strong feeling of self-importance by letting everyone in FB-land know what’s going on. She knows that you lowly FB readers don’t understand the news like she does, so she’s doing her part to “break” it to you. The only news she consumes is free, so the worth of her news is evident to everyone except her. But that’s not stopping her from edging your fear a little closer to the top of your throat with her latest “breaking news.” Woodworth and Bernstein she’s not, but those people were, like, old anyhow. Their Old People definition of news consisted of multiple editors, fact-checking staff members, and deliberate timing of carefully written stories. The Newspaper Reporter doesn’t have time for all that—she wants to inform you right now of whatever she just came across, whether or not it’s helpful.

4.            The Conspiracy Theorist

               The Conspiracy Theorist blossoms best in cultural situations that are typically disconnected from “the news,” in any traditional sense. This guy can be a Republican or Democrat, but most of the time he’s not even sure what those titles mean. If you were to present Conspiracy Theorist with two possible stories and ask that he choose the one most plausible, he would select the most outlandish and ridiculous one. He posts stuff from BuzzFeed a lot, with titles like “Trump Created Coronavirus In Secret Lab With Nixon In 1975,” or “Why The Coronavirus Is The Last Sign of the Apocalypse.” He ardently believes that it’s statistically likely that he’ll catch the ‘rona, despite the existence of actual statistics that conclusively demonstrate otherwise. He might think the government is using the ‘rona to kill religion, but he might also think that the government is the only hope that humanity has to defeat the ‘rona. No amount of reasoned discourse will suffice to persuade Conspiracy Theorist; but since we’re talking about Facebook, there isn’t much of that around any more anyhow.

3.            The Paint Respirator Guy

               You’ve just read the latest stats on the “curve.” You’ve followed the daily White House briefings (either approvingly or in white-knuckled fashion). You’re up-to-date on the virus and the measures that we’ve all decided to take to minimize the spread. You know that wearing a mask doesn’t really protect you from the virus (although it could keep you from giving it to someone else). You know that walking around with the same gloves all day and touching multiple stuff with it is dumber than a dead dog. You feel good about your trip to the HEB to get some essentials—which is why it’s jarring to round the corner of an aisle and see an otherwise-normal human being walking around wearing a paint respirator. You try not to laugh out loud as the absurdity that has become the face of human panic. You smile to yourself, knowing that Paint Respirator Guy not only doesn’t understand how paint respirators work—he may as well be wearing a sign around his neck that says “I Am Wetting My Britches With Fear Over Stuff I Know Very Little About.” The placebo effect of walking around with a paint respirator has clearly given this guy some confidence. He walks with a swagger that announces that he has no clue has ridiculous he looks, and he’s proud of it. His Facebook profile picture is probably one of him in a paint respirator, not painting.

2.            The Virtue Signaler 

There has never been a shortage of these folks on Facebook. In fact, Facebook seems tailor-made for earnest, Lisa Simpson-types to let one another know that they are The Good Kind Of Human. From the lectures on social distancing to the trendy hashtags that lets others know that they are in the Right Tribe, the Virtue Signaler doesn’t want to pass up the opportunity to show off his essential goodness. He is good and decent, and you are all diseased parasites. You should be more like him. Look at how he has The Approved Opinion about Dr. Fauci or Governor Abbott or President Trump or the people he just saw not practicing social distancing. The Virtue Signaler is especially popular among a certain sub-tribe of evangelical Christians, who are in a very big hurry to let the rest of the world know that they are Not Like That Terrible Pastor In Florida or Those Hillbillies In The Country Not Wearing Masks While They Hunt Varmints and Sich. The Virtue Signaler is more righteous than you, and you should get on board whatever bandwagon he’s posting about—or you could run into his twin sister, The Scold.

1.                The Scold

The Scold has your number, buddy. She knows what’s right, and she knows you ain’t doing it. Her number one job on Facebook is to peruse the digital universe, looking for transgressors of The Collective Hive Mind to scold publicly. The Scold would have been quite happy in 1691 Salem, when such sinners could be publicly whipped. She is not new to Facebook, and is really quite active on Twitter. Last year, while a braying, facile mob whipped up demonstrably false charges against a Supreme Court candidate, The Scold had a field day sharing her disapproval of anyone who dared to type the words “due process.” Because she doesn’t approve of your politics, if you have a different take on how society should respond to the virus she will castigate you publicly for “politicizing” the issue. The Scold was once a hall monitor in high school; she rarely served detention for anything, and she is still quite happy to let you know that You Will Be Made To Comply. In fact, The Scold was one of the first people on Facebook to agitate for calling out the US military against anyone who didn’t react in panic the way that she did. The more onerous and draconian the suppression of civil rights, the happier she is in this Two Minutes’ Hate that we call a pandemic. In fact, The Scold is tracking down the IP address for this blog right now in order to narc us all out to The Authorities.