How to Get Great Service at Torchy’s Tacos... and Other Things I’ve Recently Learned

 Things I’ve Learned About Solicitors Offering Me Bug Extermination Services:

1.  If you say “We don’t have a bug problem” or “We don’t need exterminators” or “We don’t really mind the bugs”, the person at the door will argue with you and tell you that EVERYBODY has a bug problem and that you may need exterminators more than you even KNOW (suggesting that perhaps you have termites in the attic or a giant wasp nest* or gremlins).  But if you smile and phrase your refusal this way—“No thanks, we live in peace with our bugs”—the solicitor will smile back uncomfortably and say okay and tell you to have a nice day before backing off your porch.  (I can only assume he thought we were Buddhists or something and had nothing in his salesman’s kit to combat religious objection.)

*This is something we may actually have but are afraid to find out.

Scorpion, trapped under a glass,
with cat hair stuck to its tail.

2.  If you decide to humor the guy at the door and let him give you his spiel—“Well actually, yes, we have seen twelve scorpions in our house in the past month and we are slightly concerned that one half of our attic is nothing but a giant wasp hive”—and if you engage his attention with friendly banter long enough, he will eventually tell you things that his boss probably does not want him to tell you.  Such as…

Me:  “I’m definitely not going to buy anything today (or ever) but you can leave me your contact info if you want (so I know what company not to hire).”

Him:  “Ok, but I’ll only be here until August 15^th, so you need to decide by then.”

Me:  “What do you mean?”

Him:  “I don’t live here, I’m from Utah.”

Me:  (Ah-ha, your summer job is to go to Texas and sucker people out of their money, huh?)  “We have better bugs than you do in Utah, right?”

Him:  “You definitely have MORE bugs!  My job is easy down here, I don’t even have to BS people!”

Nice. 

And, for the record, I am not purposely protecting this guy or his company.  I accidently recycled his info and can’t remember who he was.

3.  Despite the fact that it is sometimes fun to reveal solicitors as idiots, I have decided henceforth to stop opening my door to strangers.  Though (and this is a real piece of advice from the police and everything) I will also not take the coward’s way out and pretend to not be home, because that can tell the solicitor-burglar hybrid that it’s ok to kick your door down and rob you.  So from now on, I will say, “Who is it?!” And then if it’s not a friend or a neighbor or a pizza or a puppy or Google Fiber, I will say, “No thank you!  Go away now!”

Things I’ve Learned About Baby Screech Owls:

1.  They are adorable.

2.  They are born with only one emotion:  SURPRISE.

3.  When they are first learning how to screech, they sort of sound like a mockingbird with a cicada stuck in its throat.  Or maybe a cicada with a mockingbird stuck in its throat. *

* In the absence of a video of baby screech owls screeching, I instead offer you this fifteen-second video of a goat at the Capital of Texas Zoo.

Things I’ve Learned About Doing Research For My Writing:

1.  If you are writing a short story with a Chihuahua as a character and you are trying to find out whether or not to capitalize the word “Chihuahua” (the answer is yes) when it is referring to a dog breed and not the place (still yes) and you do a lot of Googling about Chihuahuas, Facebook will decide that you really love (and need lots of) Chihuahuas and will show you several ads like this:

2.  If you decide to mess with Facebook by Googling poisons for fifteen minutes or so (clicking on such links as “10 Poisons Used to Kill People” and “The Deadliest Poisons in History and Why People Stopped Using Them”), Facebook will stop showing you Chihuahuas and will instead start showing you sunglasses and jewelry and Toyotas and swimsuits (all things you have never shopped for online) because Facebook is worried about you and these are the things Facebook thinks might make you happy and pull you back from the brink.  Because people who drive Corollas while wearing swimsuits, sunglasses, and earrings never want to poison themselves or those around them.

 

3.  If a scene in your short story takes place in Torchy’s Tacos and you decide to have lunch there in order to do “research” and you spend your whole visit jotting down notes on a pad of paper, you will get the BEST service anyone has ever gotten at a Torchy’s Tacos ever.

* Number of times an employee asked me, “How is everything?”  =  3

* Number of times an employee asked if they could throw away my trash for me  =  2

* Number of times an employee gave me a nervous smile  =  4

(I was not trying to give the poor guys an anxiety attack—I was just too wrapped up in my note-taking to realize they thought I was a restaurant critic until after I left.  Rest easy, Torchy’s.  I enjoyed my green chili pork taco.)

Looking forward to what this week has to teach me…

My Neighborhood is Writing a Horror Story

My neighborhood is writing a horror story.  I don’t mean that a bunch of people are getting together over finger foods and cocktails and collaboratively penning a piece of pulp fiction.  (Although that sounds kind of awesome so if anyone wants to do that, email me.)  No, I mean, the neighborhood itself seems to be acting out some sort of horrific tale of terror, and I’m upset because A) it’s kind of scary, and B) it’s better than anything I’ve come up with lately.

Most of you are probably going to tell me that I’m overreacting.  Fine.  Go ahead.  I don’t care.  I need to say this, regardless of what you think, in a “cover my butt” sort of way.  I need to go on record with my observations just in case something is actually going on here.  That way, when a monster comes up out of the sewer and devours all of us, you can point to this blog and say, “Huh.  I guess someone should have listened to Carie.”  And before I begin, may I remind you that, despite how crazy Tom Hanks appeared, he turned out to be RIGHT in The Burbs.

The first two unsettling incidents are actually rather sad. I promise not to be graphic, but simply stating the facts could cause some upset, so read at your own risk.

For over five months, a little male cardinal lived in the bushes between our house and our next door neighbors, and he… well, he wasn’t quite right in the head.  He became infatuated with my neighbor’s blue van.  Day in, day out, hour after hour after hour, he would peck at its side mirrors, windshield, and back window, leaving little trails of bird poo down the sides and scratching up the finish.  He was attracted to other cars too—their black SUV, if he had access to the garage, even our cars would do if the blue van was gone.  I also saw him ferociously pecking at our attic window a couple of times, and one day he flew full speed into our glass front door, but survived. 

The little cardinal did not bathe in the birdbath, nor did he mate and build a nest, and I never saw him eat an insect or heard him sing a pretty song.  All he did was peck the van or closest-to-van alternative.  He was a sad, strange, deranged little bird and he drove us all crazy, but after awhile we got sort of used to him and his antics. 

Two weeks ago, the owners of the blue van moved away.  Two days later, I found a pile of red feathers and a small mangled carcass in our yard.  The crazy little cardinal was no more.  I assumed he’d been killed by a cat, but I secretly wondered if the loss of his beloved blue van was the real cause of the little guy’s demise.

Ok, that was to ease you in.  This next one’s worse.

One week after the little cardinal died, I walked Uno up to the park in the center of our neighborhood, and we found the remains of a dead cat in the field there.  Beyond from the usual upset of seeing a dead animal, this concerned me for two reasons.  One, it was only half of the cat.  And two, it was half of a cat I knew.

He didn’t have a name, or if he did I didn’t know it.  He was a stray, a mangy black tom with long white “socks” on his two back feet.  He had been prowling this neighborhood for longer than I’ve lived here and he was tough.  I’d seen him stalk birds (in fact, it was this cat who I assumed killed the crazy cardinal) and chase down other felines, intent on more than a playful romp if he caught them.

His violent death is a mystery.  So far, we are attributing it to a coyote—they live in the greenbelt behind our house, but we have never seen one in the neighborhood.  I don’t like to think of them being in our park.  Whatever it was, it was sad (and gross) to see that old ‘White Socks’ had somehow met his doom.

Ok, the sad stuff is over.  But there is plenty more weirdness.

For instance…

If you read my Facebook posts, you know that Mark and I have seen an increase in the number of scorpions in our house lately.  There have been four sightings in the past two weeks.  And they are larger than usual.

Ok, not THAT large, but still pretty big.

We have also started spotting big furry tarantulas in the neighborhood, and every time we’ve seen one, it has been traveling in the middle of the street, moving fast, seemingly with a destination in mind.  But I have never seen one of the holes where they live, and this confuses me.  When I was growing up in Richardson, we had tarantulas in our yard (one fell off the screen door onto my neck in the seventh grade, but that’s a horror story for another time) but they all lived in easy-to-spot holes in the ground, next to sidewalks or under rocks.  And when we saw the tarantulas, they were usually sitting next to their holes or walking nearby, never “hurrying” down the middle of the street.

That is Mark's brave hand.  If this photo had
audio, you would hear, "Take the picture!
Take the picture! Take the picture!"

There have been an increased number of “For Sale” signs in the neighborhood this month as well.  Off the top of my head, I can think of nine houses that are currently on the market.   So maybe I’m not the only one noticing these creepy incidents.

And then yesterday…

When I walked Uno to the park yesterday, I noticed some suspicious holes under the roots of one of the big oak trees there.  I thought, Ah ha!  Maybe this is where all the tarantulas live!  (That would be really weird because it’s nowhere near where we have actually seen the tarantulas, but whatever.)  Then I noticed that the ground around the tree was littered with enormous dead beetles.  These things were brown, about the size of a walnut, HEADLESS, and sucked dry.  Yeah.

Uno and I backed away slowly and went home and locked the door.

Although the tree-of-death scared me, I was curious about it.  Was there really something living in those holes that feasted on huge beetles?  Also, I didn’t have my camera yesterday and was worried no one would believe me.  So, being the good little investigative blogger that I am, I went back today with my phone so I could take a picture of the holes and the carcasses.  

 

What I found out is this:  The thing that lives in the hole IS the giant beetle!  I saw a couple of live ones crawling around in there.  There was a big one near the entrance but he wasn’t in good light for a picture so I poked him with a stick and made him angry.  So angry that he GROWLED AT ME.  No kidding.  Here is a 25-second video of the giant beetle growling at me.  There is no narration because I was honestly too startled to speak.

So now the question remains, why are their dead HEADLESS brethren lying around outside the holes?  Was there a mass suicide?  Or an attack on the tree by something larger and creepier?  Or have the giant beetles turned on each other?  I didn’t stay around to find out.  I high-tailed it back home and dead-bolted the door.

Like I said before, I know some of you will say I’m crazy.  I’m blowing this whole thing out of proportion, bah, blah, blah.  Fine.  Maybe nothing creepy is going on.  But the way I see it, right now we’ve got people flocking out of a neighborhood where birds and cats are turning up dead, scorpions and tarantulas seem to be on the move, and something is decapitating the giant GROWLING beetles that live underneath a tree in the park.  If that’s not the plot of a horror story, I don’t know what is.

There.  I’ve gone on record.

Walk

I wrote the following journal entry exactly one year ago, only about a month after I’d moved in with Mark.  It’s crazy how long ago that feels.   

April 28, 2010

I went for a walk tonight.

I was supposed to be doing school work, but I’d been cooped up in my classroom all day long monitoring TAKS, and I’d had a chai latte and it was just a really nice evening and I decided I needed to get out.  Mark chose not to come with me this time, so I set out with just my book, a collection of stories by Naomi Shihab Nye, and nothing else, not even a cell phone.  It was about 8:15PM. 

Taking a walk at this time of night without my phone is not something I ever would have done in Rosedale, but here it feels ok, and it was kind of liberating to get out of touch for a while.  I set off down Snapdragon and turned right on Bluestar, looking at houses and reading the story called “Lending Library” in my book, another tale of a cosmic conversation in a taxi.  (Naomi’s book is making me wish I had more reasons to take public transportation.)

When I got to the corner of Bluestar and Sundrop Valley, I suddenly wished I had brought my phone.  There, on the edge of a bush by the sidewalk was a momma cat and four adorable little kittens, three tabby and one (the littlest one) solid black, probably about six or eight weeks old.  Well, Mark had said no to a walk, but had he ever said no to kittens?  These were so cute—in that stage of toddling around, curious and a little wobbly—and I knew he would want to see them.  So I ran back the few blocks (revealing how truly out of shape I am) and got Mark.  He came back with me and we spent about fifteen minutes watching and playing with the little cats.  They were gentle and not wild.  I held two of them and only got hissed at, half-heartedly, a couple of times.  We’re worried about their safety and about them breeding more strays and considered talking to the owners of the closest house about maybe helping to get them fixed or something, but there was nothing to be done tonight, so we left them alone.  Mark went on home and I continued on my walk.

By then it was much darker and I could only read by street lamp, and there are not that many street lamps in our neighborhood of shady roads and many stars, but I kept trying anyway.  I am a slow reader as it is, someone who likes to stop often and ponder what I have read.  This just gave me more opportunity, often in the middle of a sentence.  Street lamp… “I’m never lonely.  And I’ve only taken a friend along twice.  But I always take books and find more books.  Say, have you read…”  Pause for darkness.  Porch light… “another one of my truly favorite books, Cold Oceans by Jon Turk?”  Darkness again.  Reading the story so slowly like that—a sentence here, a paragraph there—made me enjoy it even more.  It was about a taxi driver who had waited at the airport for Naomi (we are, apparently, on a first name basis now) for three hours when her plane was delayed, but his grumpiness quickly turned to friendliness when they started discussing books and he realized that she was friends with his favorite author.  He told her that Peter Matthiessen’s book The Snow Leopard changed his life, and ever since then he has worked for a year (earning money and living simply) and then explored for a year, and he listed all of the countries he had been to already living life this way.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but I enjoyed the spaces between the story (ever-increasing as I walked on streets with fewer lights) just as much if not more.  This neighborhood is definitely different from Rosedale.  The houses are all somewhat similar in that “master planned community” sort of way (I always wonder if the builders of these developments ever get to say in the process, “It’s all part of the master plan…”) and when the lights are on inside and you can see in, the rooms are… different… in a way I can’t describe, but this place certainly has its own individual charm as well, and I was finding it tonight.  The many stars that are visible… Orion, the big dipper, and other, smaller ones, I never saw on Ramsey.  The flowers everywhere, making us true to our name of “Wildflower Park”, specifically that big patch of buttercups at the corner of Hibiscus Valley and Chaska that I actually passed twice tonight when I decided my walk hadn’t been long enough yet.  The peacocks that you can hear kay-hawing out somewhere on the east (?) side of the neighborhood.  The fact that I can walk without my phone if I want to and still feel safe.  (Although I think I’ll start carrying it anyway.  Shady characters or not, I could just as easily trip and fall here as in Rosedale, and besides it is helpful for kitten sightings.)

In the shadows of my walk, while I was pondering the latest words in my book and waiting for the next bit of illumination, I found myself looking at the houses I passed, and feeling those familiar stirrings of envy for the big houses with their second stories and balconies and extra rooms.  Without even meaning to, I started to fantasize about cat rooms and more living space and a separate office and guest room, decorating the imaginary square feet with furniture and, naturally, more books.  When I realized what I was doing, I had to laugh at myself.  Mark and I could move into the biggest house in this neighborhood and have a separate room for every cat if we wanted to, and in the evenings after work, I’d still grab my book and my tea and my laptop and squeeze into the chair by his computer so we could hang out together.  Maybe all that space is overrated after all…

Eventually, I got close enough to the end of my story that I could no longer read it in disjointed segments, and I stopped abruptly and read the last few lines in a circle of light somewhere on Hibiscus Valley.   When I finished, I realized I was standing right in the middle of someone’s driveway and felt a little silly, wondering if they were watching me from inside.  After that, it seemed like the right plan to head home.  I didn’t really want to; I felt like I could walk around all night, enjoying the cool breezes, reading under street lights, and contemplating the idea of taking every other year off to travel the world.  But I had no way of knowing what time it was or if maybe Mark was worrying about me, so I made my way back to Snapdragon Drive.

By the time I arrived home, it was 9:20PM, and I had come to three conclusions.  I’m very happy with my new neighborhood, and I don’t think I would do well with the work-a-year, play-a-year lifestyle, but I think I’ll put The Snow Leopard on my reading list nonetheless.