In Rememberance of Ms past...

Every once in a while I get this morbid craving for tacos. 

Not the good kind of tacos that you get in authentic Mexican food establishments, the kind that are just meat (or FISH!) and red onion, cilantro and lime.  Those are REAL tacos.   My morbid craving is always for Disgusting Tacos.

Like Taco Bell tacos.

As in a soft taco shell with beans and faux meat and grated cheddar cheese and nasty shredded lettuce and tasteless tomatoes and hot sauce.  Look.  We're ordinarily very healthy.  Every once in a while we get these morbidly bad cravings and they simply MUST be obeyed.

Such a craving came upon me last week.  So off to SchmalMart I schlepped to get the requisite shredded iceberg lettuce.

I came home and heated the faux meat and taco seasoning and beans and grated some cheese and made up the tacos and proceeded to dive in head first.

Chris asked me if they were as good as I was expecting.  And I had to admit that, no, they weren't.  And he asked what was wrong and I gave a think.

And as I thought it over I realized something.  That what I really wanted was a moment in time...not really the tacos.  The tacos were a part of that moment, but what I was really craving was the moment.  I wanted to be 16 again.  Sitting in a Taco Bell in a small, podunk town in western Washington.  Surrounded by my friends, thinking we were the coolest things since sliced bread.  I wanted that moment of feeling supremely confident in my ability to be witty and intelligent and even a little bit cruel.  (They laughed.  It was mean, but it was funny and as a kid I assumed that made it ok.  I know better as an adult.)

In chatting with Chris later, that's what I realized.  But how are we to satiate that kind of craving?  You couldn't pay me enough money to ever repeat the whole year--but that one moment of being admired and lauded--that feeling of captivating.  That's what I wanted back.

It's not in our cards to get moments back.  I suppose that's why we should be enjoying the ones we get.  In the end, I had some really good tacos.