The Magic Lougie.

Some things in life you just can’t explain.

Tripping over your own feet.  The taste of Coca-Cola.  Ball lightning.  The reality beyond an event horizon. The following tale of personal woe falls somewhere between ball lightning and the reality beyond an event horizon.

 

"Well I say: what's that Phineas!?" "Ball lightning??"

It was a weekday, mid summer 2010.  The kind of day that was busy enough to feel satisfying, but not overbearing. The kind of day when unfortunate miracles happen.

Stef was working as an intern at her current position at the Bridge, the church we attend in Kalamazoo.  Since our hours were different at that time we drove south separately from Grand Rapids.  After work I met her in Kalamazoo to go out for dinner and a movie.  Our friend, Dominick, was also working at the church at the time. With only 30 minutes until showtime we all tried to think of the fastest sit-down restaurant we could.  Yep, that’s right, we went to a Mexican restaurant.

There are some tricks to finding a good Mexican restaurant.

• Wesbite – You don’t just want to go to a place that has a polished website – this is a cardinal offense.   Mexican restaurants might be the one type of establishment that operates contrary to the notion that no website means the business is not successful.  Stef and I learned this recently the hard way.  We googled to find a good Mexican restaurant in Grand Rapids and happened upon a sleek and appetizing website for Carlos O’Kelly’s.  We said, “Ohh wow, a place that has enough revenue to adminster such a keen website must be delicious!” (Maybe not our exact words).  Mistake.  I won’t comment too much on it but if anyone likes store-bought chips, jarred salsa, and sauce from a can that says “Old El Paso” this might be the place for you have been longing for.

• Location – The location of the Mexican restaurant plays a big role in its quality.  No need for words, a simple flow chart will explain my point.

 

Feel free to post this on your fridge for weekly consultation.

• Name – I cannot stress this enough: if a Mexican restaurant has a name that does not have at least one Spanish word in it that is a bad sign. For instance, some of my favorite Mexican restaurants are named El Jimador, El Burrito Loco, Tres Lobos, and Tres Amigos.  Actually I am surprised at how similar they all are; maybe they should combine into Los Tres Burritos De Mis Amigos, Lobos, y Los Jimadors.

• Environment – Environment is much different than location.  I am talking about the feel of the place when you walk in.  Some questions to yourself ask might include: Does it have funny looking ceiling fans?  Are there a lot of vinyl beer special banners on the walls?  Is there soccer on the TV in the bar area?  And, most importantly, are you shown to your table by a Mexican person?  Sit down and relax my friend, you have found a diamond in the rough.

• People – Finally, and perhaps I alluded to this a bit in the previous bullet, but are there Mexican people in this restaurant?  Most of them can be working, that is acceptable.  But if you walk into the dining area and your eyes strain to locate even one Hispanic person either dining or working you need to immediately turn to the non-Mexican person seating you, politely thank them for their efforts, and exit the premises as soon as possible.

Back to the narrative. After enjoying a delicious meal in which we were seated, served, and out the door in 20 minutes we proceeded to the theater.  Since we had two cars Dom rode with me to the Kalamazoo 10 while Stef followed us.

To get there we had to cross through the rather large parking lot of a Kohl’s.  While pulling up to a three way stop in the lot I coughed, cleared my throat, and generated a decent sized ball of mucus and saliva commonly known as a ‘lougie’.  I rolled down the manual window of the red 1997 red Chevy Cavalier I was piloting and let it fly while simultaneously turning right around the corner of the intersection.  I drove about 500 feet or more and that’s when I turned, looked at Dom in the passenger seat and wildly exclaimed, with eyes wide, “Did I just spit on that guy!!??”

Yes.  Yes readers of Obviously A Joke, I accidentally spit a huge lougie out the car window, through another gentleman’s open window, onto his arm, chest, and possibly face.  I mean this this splattered and broke up while airborne.  And all of this while turning a corner!  I think at this point a diagram would be helpful.

Approaching the intersection, lougie forming...

Turning the corner..

Gross...

 

Man, I'm glad I wasn't that guy.

Looking back on it, I don’t really know why it didn’t immediately occur to me.  “Hey Joe, make sure when you spit out the window there is no one sitting there. Oh, and remember all those physics courses you took in college? When you let go of an object in radial motion it is no longer subject to a normal force and it will proceed tangentially. Into a guy’s face”

Well, luckily by the time I realized what happened we were beyond being followed.  We snuck into the theater and rushed into our seats and the whole time I was praying that the car wasn’t keyed, broken into, or on fire.  A happy (sort of?) ending I guess, I ‘got away’ with spitting on a guy.  Let me take this time to officially apologize: sorry anonymous man, I hope you weren’t on your way to a job interview.