Love my Taco C!

When I got crossways with my local not-liberal-enough-for-me church a few years ago, I took up spending time on Sunday afternoons at my local Taco C with a book to read. Taco C has a salad I like, especially when I load it up with pico, jalapenos, and cilantro from the condiments bar. I figure it's most of a day's worth of calories for me, but it's less than most of the food in that store, And it gives me a place to sit with a good book and get away from whatever else is going on in my life.

Yesterday afternoon, I left work a few minutes early because I had a sore throat and a headache. I had a couple of errands to run, and then I planned to stop by the Taco C closer to my office for a salad for supper. Some of the staff there recognize me because I've been stopping by after my Thursday-evening class for a while, and if I time in right, they get my order exactly right, even though I usually skip the rice and beans and ask for the chicken to be diced instead of sliced. It's also been remodeled recently, and it's always a bit cleaner than the one closer to home, which was actually infested with crickets the last time I was there.

Since I was running errands on the way to the taco place, I decided a short-cut would be simpler than taking Texas Avenue, which I hate. I turned onto a back street, then realized I wasn't sure whether I needed to turn on the first or second block off the main drag.

It wasn't the first one. I got a half-block down the road when I saw a "tortilla bar" I didn't know existed. It was in a nice, new, modern-looking building, and it had enough cars in the lot to suggest that the food might be pretty good.I had a paperback with me, and I was momentarily tempted to pull in  and take some time to eat and read and find out what the new place was like.

But I had come this way in the first place because I wasn't feeling very good, so I made the U-turn and found my way back to the Taco C.

The store manager quickly dispensed with the customer ahead of me and greeted me with his warm, broad smile. "How are you today?" he asked.

"Not too good, which is a good thing for you," I answered. I explained to him about stumbling across the other taco shop and rejecting it in favor of the "comfort food" I knew I'd find at his store. At least there, I knew I could get something I know I like and I could take it home to eat it.

"Well, thank you," he said, and then rattled off my salad order exactly the way I wanted it. As he was ringing it up, he turned to the kid who was making it and told him to be sure to give me the diced chicken.

"Anything else?" he asked. I hadn't ordered a drink because I'd just gotten one at my last stop. "Sure you don't want another?"

No, I said, but I would take the senior discount.

"Ah, I can do better than that," he said, tapping in a code on his register. "How about free?"

"Really"

"You're a good customer, and you chose us today instead of the other store. Happy to do it for you."

Once in a while, things do turn my way!