Before you read on, you must watch this video:

Scott wanted an alternative title to this post: “Allison & Scott Go to Taco Bell”, a la “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”. Our search for Taco Bell during the 15 hours we had on US soil in between flights to Sydney was slightly different than the movie though. First and foremost being that it wasn’t pot induced. We also didn’t run into Neil Patrick Harris.

Our search was travel induced. We’ve been in Perú for the last 6 months! Although we found some great food down there, I felt like I hadn’t been truly satiated for our entire trip. For one thing, often times when you’d order something American, like pizza, you’d end up with a Peruvian version of it, which was good, but always a little disappointing.

Anyway. The possibility of being able to find a Taco Bell got into Scott’s mind somewhere between Quito and Miami. And the search was on. The Miami airport didn’t have one, so LAX was our last chance.

Immediately off the plane we started looking for one of those maps that shows you all of the amenities available in the airport. We ended up wandering through two different terminals with no luck.

This part in our story is similar to when Harold & Kumar get to where the White Castle used to be to find a different hamburger joint. They go through the drive thru anyway, resigned to eating generic burgers, and the employee at the window ends up telling them where there is still a White Castle. Well, we walked up to our security gate, resigned to eating at the generic Mexican restaurant, and met a super friendly TSA agent who suggested taking the free shuttle to the Westin where there was a Taco Bell located across the street.

The rest of the story is short and sweet. We made it to Taco Bell! I ate 2 supreme soft tacos and 2 bean burritos. Scott ate 4 hard tacos and 5 soft tacos. We shared a root beer. Taco Bell! Aaah, we meet again!

As I was bringing the tray full of food to our table, a young English couple enquired as to why we were eating so much food. Once we had explained that we had been in Perú for the last 6 months, they totally understood our plight!

We took the shuttle back to the airport, and walked triumphantly up to the security gate. The TSA officer had vanished, which was oh so a la Harold & Kumar!

 

p.s. I would be misrepresenting the good Taco Bell vibes if I didn’t note that they were cut somewhat short. We were thrown back into negative America-land when an entitled white man started yelling at the staff behind the counter at Taco Bell. He had been in the drive thru and thought it was taking too long, so he took the time to drive around, park and come inside to start screaming at everyone.

Another man, black, started yelling as well, saying that the staff would have called the cops immediately if the initial yelling white man had been black. The police did arrive soon after, although both men had taken off. The white man at the insistence of this wife and crying young daughter.

The aggression and self-entitlement of the incident is definitely something I haven’t seen for a long while. I also haven’t felt threatened like that, even though I was just a bystander, in a long while. Big downer.