Rain forests and a weird taco

Looks like we need at least one post for July. (Yes, I cannot let our blog die. But no one can deny that nobody really has the energy to write on it. I see the situation as somewhat analogous to the Vietnam War. But let's get back to the story.)

So, as always, stories of weird occurrences on the subway are good! I was standing and reading on the T as I traveled into Boston this morning, well, I guess I had stopped reading when a man said to me, "Are you registered to vote?"

He was wearing a hat covered in pins (or are they called buttons? You know, those circular things that you pin to things that usually have messages on them, as in "I like Ike"...) And I don't remember what any of them said but they were all very old and peeling. He had some long beaded necklaces around his neck, an old faded shirt, and earrings shaped like forks. Before he talked to me, he was having some kind of strange conversation on a cell phone. I couldn't really follow it at all, but I could tell it was strange.

Anyway, immediately after asking me the question, he said, "Oh, I guess you're too young," before I even had time to process what he had asked me. (I could take offense at automatically being assumed to be less than 18, but I have also been asked if I'm a BU student several times during the past few weeks (I'm in a summer program at BU) so I suppose it's not all bad.)

So he turned to another person. "Are you registered to vote?"

"Not in this country," he said.

"Oh, what country are you from?"

The answer was Brazil. "Oh, Brazil. I'm very sorry about what America is doing to your country."

"What do you mean?" asked the Brazilian man.

"We're cutting down your rain forests. For MacDonnald's."

"Oh, right."

"Most Americans are really dumb; they don't even know what our country is doing to your rain forests."

I can only guess at what he would do if he did find someone who was registered to vote. But that was only my first odd exchange of the day (although I suppose you could argue it wasn't really my odd exchange). The second took place when I went to buy a taco.

This was my second time going to this restaurant. I asked for a taco and a bottle of water, paid, etc. After a moment the guy at the cashier (the only person in the store) said, "Well, the thing is, I don't actually work here."

What??? If he didn't work here, why...?

"I work upstairs. I'm covering for a friend. I don't know how to make tacos, but he does. He's upstairs right now but he'll be back in a few minutes."

Oh, okay. "Oh, okay."

"If you asked for a burrito, I could have made it for you," he said. During this time, someone else came in and asked for a burrito and got it. But soon the actual person came back and made my taco.

Now, it was a weird taco: pork, cabbage, and pineapple. The description had said "served on two corn tortillas," which I had assumed meant there would be two small tacos. It turned out to actually be one small taco, wrapped in two tortillas. But I really didn't mind all that much, seeing as it turned out to taste quite bad. I liked the pineapple but not the cabbage.

-Rebecca