Ring the bell

That’s it. It’s finally here. We all thought it would never come, but here it is, and the excitement on everyone’s face is infectious. We all knew it was only a matter of time, and just when we felt like we could’t wait any longer, just when we thought it would never come, just when we thought we’d go crazy without it, like Manna it has descended from Heaven and abated our fears once again, reassuring us that life can move on, not just as normal, but better.

I for one can’t wait to get out there and get that magical powder all over my hands and face. To frolic in its simple beauty and to gorge myself on the white, fluffy, enriched bleached wheat flour, ground corn, and vegetable oil that may contain TBHQ that is the Taco Salad Shell.

That’s right Montreal, Taco Bell is here, and I am freaking out. When last week’s Mirror outed the recent opening of Quebec’s first Taco Bell in the West Island, well, let’s just say I understood what it was like to be a New York teenager in 1964 hearing that the Beatles were touching down at JFK.

That panties-in-a-bunch shock and excitement was then followed by a little resentment. Why did they have to announce it? Why couldn’t they have just taken me aside in private first, and let me quietly get my shot at eating all the Potato Bites, Cinnamon Twists and Soft Taco Supremes my soon-to-be-cholesterol-stressed heart desired?

But that resentment soon disappeared. How could they have known that I have a very special and intimate relationship with Taco Bell? They had no idea the Harold-and-Kumar-like pilgrimages I made as a child with the rest of my family to Plattsburg in the ’80s and ’90s, taking advantage of cheap gas and the ginormous bulk portioning of American foodstuffs.

The first Sunday of every month, my six siblings and I would pile into the rusted faux-wood panelled Ford Taurus station wagon with my dad and head for the border. My father always loved a deal, and liked the trip because he could feed an entire family for a month with a single go at Price Choppers. I loved it because of all the exclusive weird shit they had in the grocery store.

Like most ’80s kids, I had a strange relationship with cereal—basically I would collect them like girls collect purses, or designer geeks collect rare Nikes. Pac-Man, Boo Berry, Cookie Crisp—these were all the kinds of exotic boxes I’d only see on American TV, the ones I couldn’t find at the IGA, the ones I lusted after like a G.I. Joe Aircraft Carrier.

As the funny-looking kid with a funny name in elementary school, pimping out my Pac-Man cereal was essential to survival. It was like being an inmate with a line on the best narcotics: Everyone wanted to be my friend. With it I could buy off protection from the bullies that wandered the schoolyard ruthlessly administering shiv-like wedgies to all my nerdy brethren. I promised boxes of Franken Berry to guys like Sean Maclean, a seventh grader whose hand was bigger than my head, and David Lobos, whose violence in the playground was only matched by the harshness of his breath.

For me, Taco Bell is synonymous with that exclusive feeling of doing something not everyone else gets to do. It’s about the anticipation, the journey and the gut-busting semi-nauseous satisfaction of successfully packing six Original Tacos into my 12-year-old Filipino stomach.

Will kids in the West Island realize what an enchanting privilege they’re getting? Will they see incomparable beauty in watching an acne-ravaged pubescent teen nimbly yank one of those Guacamole guns down to give eight Bean Burritos exactly two portion-controlled squirts, as I did? Probably not.

But while the exclusivity of eating at Taco Bell may have diminished, the gleeful sensorial bludgeoning that is eating there remains, and I know that in my heart of clogged hearts, Taco Bell will forever remain a special place. Now if only we didn’t have to wonder about the whole E.Coli thing.

Have I made the trek out to the West Island for a Big Bean Burrito? Not yet. I’m saving myself. I plan to starve myself for a few more days to make room for as many Gordita Supremes as I can fit on a tray (by my calculations, about 12 if you stack them), but when the time comes, on that drunken early evening when I have a hankerin’ for a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl and day-glo guacamole, you know where to look. Ask not for whom the Bell tolls... It tolls for me.