Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The village idiot of Las Vegas buys his dinner at the laundromat.

One of, if not, the most interesting things about my neighborhood is all the peddling going on. Someone is always trying to sell somebody something:

Last night I made a trek to the neighborhood laundomat - as I am waiting for the wash to finish a middle aged Hispanic women approaches me - "Mister," she says with a heavy Spanish accent, "You want to buy tamales?"

I recognize her immediately. A month or so back she was peddling homemade burritos at the park. I didn't buy any, but now she had my undivided attention - "What kind do you have? And how much are they?" -- my stomach had begun to growl in anticipation. I knew, before even tasting, they would be awesome. "Mister," she says again with her south of the border twang, "I have chicken, or cheese. They cost one dollar each. I also have a cooler full of homemade fresa (strawberry) drink . It cost seventy five cents a cup."

"Sold!" I yell with enthusiasm, "Why don't you give me two cheese and two chicken. Give me a cup of the fresa as well." - She walks to her car, opens the back seat, grabs a cup from the bag, fills the cup with fresa and hands it to me. She then walks back to the trunk, opens it, grabs four tamales from a heat bag and hands them to me as well - "Four seventy five...please," she says with a wide smile.

The steam rose when I opened the husk and took the first savory bite. It was to perfection, the texture was consistent, the chicken and cheese portions were generous. It was a deal...a very good deal! The fresa was sensational as well!

After devouring the fare, I take a seat on the bench and wait for my laundry to finish. As I am setting there rubbing my belly, the senorita who sold me walks by again - "Geez Mister," she says with a smile, "You already ate it. Did you like?" I tell her how much I enjoyed it and how I could eat another ten of them - she laughs and says - "You try my sopapilla with sugar and honey. You will like me forever," we smile in unison and I say -- "If you were my girlfriend I would weigh five hundred pounds from all of your cooking," I then make a hand gesture around my stomach to make sure she understood the context of my comment - she smiles and says, "You would be gordito if I was your girlfriend," -- I nod in agreement and say - "I would be very gordito if you were my girlfriend."


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