My family and I drove down from Park City to the Redstone Village Outlet Mall for a nice dinner and a movie at the cinema. My husband, Bob, our two children, Ryan (12) and Patricia (9), and my mother, “Nanna” as the kids affectionately call her, were looking forward to a fun, relaxing night out. We decided on the Cafe Rio burrito bar. Standing from outside we could see that the line inside was long, but this is always the case at Cafe Rio. The food is decently good and the affordable price brings in the masses. We live up on the Hill in Park City, meaning price is no object for us. But sometimes we like to dip into the chasms of the lower class for a sneak peak at the service people, just to get a feel for the carefree life of the common man. My husband, Bob, who’s seen success in the stock market, insists that once a month we must go out into the world and mingle among the poor, observe their likes and dislikes, and generally weave ourselves into the fabric of the average American. Unfortunately, on this night we seemed to have woven ourselves into the disgustingly filthy T-shirts of two young men eating at the Cafe Rio, who, judging by their food-stained apparel, appeared to have no dignity, no sense of self-worth, no respect for themselves or for those that were forced to share this food establishment with them.
As we opened the door to the burrito restaurant and stepped in line, my eyes immediately fell upon these two vagabond young males. Both were seated in the middle of the cafe with three massive plates full of food. Each were digging into an immense pile of nachos with forks and fingers, slurping and sucking the food down like pigs of a trough. Without a care of soiling their clothes, their faces, or their hair, the two gluttons belched and farted their way to the bottom of the mountain of chips and cheese within the very few minutes my disgusted family stood in line watching. I barely stomached the sight as my bowls moved up into my throat. I put my hand to my mouth as I felt an uprising of my unhappy intestines, revolting in the disgust as the two gluttons began shoveling their next plates of burritos into their greedy mouthes. They paused only to pour horchata down their gullets, spilling the white beverage on their been and hot sauce-covered shirts, pants, arms, faces, and all over the table. They seemed not to care about anything other than the speed of which they gorged themselves with the cheap mexican food. They did not speak. They did not look up from their plates. They did not wipe their mouths with napkins. They did not apologize for making bodily noises. They were two primates eating with the speed one might associate with a starving canine, hurriedly and horridly lapping at the food as if it were about to be taken away from it. Tongues smacked lips like those of bull frogs lashing out at fat black flies. Fists were clenched around food and fork like those of dirty possums groping and grabbing at a dead fish. They smelled of BO, sweat, flatulence and beans. The snorting and drooling of wild hogs brought my face to a green flush. I became dizzy and hot. I felt my legs grow weak and the rising temperature of the room spun on account of the horrid slobs. Bob grabbed me stiffly by the arm as he saw me start to faint, and quickly pulled me back outside to safety. The kids and Nanna followed suite with looks of horror and nausea. We doubled over, breathing in the cool, clean mountain air for many minutes as our heads cleared and our eyes lost their glaze. Then we loaded back into the Mercedez and drove away from the wretched bowels of the Outlet Mall and back up the hill to our local five-star restaurant where we dined on lobster, caviar, veal osso bucco, and truffles like civilized human beings.
KENNETT PETERSON 