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El Fenix
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This is the most boring blog yet posted by anyone on the asylum. Turn back now. You have been warned.
Some of you from outside of Dallas, and certainly everyone outside of Texas is probably wondering what the hell an El Fenix is. Or more accurately, you first wondered why you bothered visiting this blog, then wondered what an El Fenix is.
El Fenix is a Tex-Mex restaurant within walking distance of my office. It really isn't very good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that El Fenix is to Tex-Mex what McDonalds is to barbecue. It's one of those places you go to when Subway, 7-11, and Walgreens don't have anything appealing on the menu.
Nothing out of the ordinary EVER happens at El Fenix. You sit down, they take your order, they take your pre-prepared order out of the fridge and microwave it, you eat your food, swear you'll never come back, fart, pay, and leave. It is ALWAYS this way. I suppose that is why this place draws the clientele that it does.
The particular El Fenix I go to (it's a chain, amazingly) is patronized for the most part by the chronologically endowed and soccer moms. The old have been coming here so long that not even Alzheimer's can derail their dining experience. The soccer moms come because mexicans are used to kids running all over the place with no supervision.
Today was different for some reason.
Thing 1
I sat at a table next to two females who looked to be around 19, maybe 20. They were discussing ancient religious beliefs and reached the conclusion, one civilization at a time, that each civilization had believed in certain gods because they didn't have the education to explain the things that were happening around them. My food arrived and I paid less attention to the females than I had been. When I looked up from my plate of carbs, grease, and cumin, I noticed the blonde one was bawling her eyes out.
"How?!" she wailed, "How could my Gawd let my friends (pronounced "free yundz") turn away from Him? For some reason he just won't reveal Himself to my free yundz. Every one of the people I know that have gone off to college has turned away from the Lord. How can they live in today's world without His comfort?"
She then noticed that I was listening intently to everything she said. I'm sure I had a dumbfounded look on my face (seeing as how that's how I look anyway) and she asked across the distance if I felt the same way.
"Yes," I said. "The world would be a terribly different place if it weren't for the guiding hand of the Great Space Monster."
She didn't speak to me anymore. I'm not sure if I should thank Simon or the Troll for that.
Thing 2
As I looked away from the distorted face of this emotionally desperate female, I noticed that a man and his retarded son had sat down a few booths over. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me a bit, and I'm not sure why it did today, but I found it very difficult to eat. I picked at the food on my plate, but it was turning my stomach for that kid to be over there. He wasn't facing me. He wasn't being loud. He wasn't terribly malformed. He was just rubbing hot sauce in his eyes. Amazingly, all he did was make the OK sign, bend his wrist, and rub his nose with the back of his wrist while blowing as hard as he could through his nostrils.
Even that wasn't so bad until the coke he had in his mouth came out through his nose.
I was pretty much through eating at that point.
Thing 3
As I looked around for my waiter, I heard a sound off in the distance.
Clink. Scootscoot. Clink. Scootscoot.
Panning around the room, I saw it come into view. On the floor were two tennis balls, each with a brushed aluminum tube projecting from its top. The tubes curved upward toward each other and met neatly between a pair of old, wisened hands. He was shaking wildly, like Michael J Fox on speed, but he was moving about 3 inches each step. His mouth gaping open like he was expecting the mother penguin to feed him, regurgitatively. His face covered with blue-green hoses
Mother penguin was following behind with an oxygen tank on a 2 wheeler. She was most displeased with his progress.
Clink. Scootscoot. Clink. Scootscoot.
I asked my waiter for my bill and he left to retrieve it.
Clink. Scootscoot. Clink. Scootscoot.
My waiter came back with my bill. I left a tip on the table and went to pay.
Clink. Scootscoot. Clink. Scootscoot.
I paid for my meal and a praline and turned to leave. As I was turning, I noticed that Mother penguin was now in front of the old man pulling him along by his sleeve. And she had given him the 2 wheeler to keep up with.
So here is this old man with a walker dragging a 2 wheeler of oxygen behind him trying to keep from being pulled headlong from the restaurant by a woman who obviously despised his existence.
I was just about to leave, when it happened. He had let go of the 2 wheeler so he could advance his walker, and as he turned, the 2 wheeler fell forward, hit him in the back and knocked him to the floor. So, here is this poor old guy laying in the floor on top of his walker, his shirt pulled out of his pants (she never let go), with the tubes hanging out of his nose pulling his head back at a rather uncomfortable looking angle.
Without missing a beat, the old wench yells "Goddamnit, Albert! This happens everywhere we go!” Her tirade never ended that I saw.
Since everyone else seemed too afraid of the old lady to help him, I picked him up off the floor, made sure his O2 connections were OK, placed his walker upright in front of him, and told him I'd walk the 2 wheeler out to his car for him.
He said thanks and asked if I was married. I told him I was.
He said, "You're a damned idiot."
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