Ode To A French Fried Taco

Twenty years ago, I had never eaten at Jack in the Box.  I had heard of the restaurant, mostly from movies and TV, but I always filed it away with other “out of my area” businesses like Tim Horton’s or In-And-Out Burger.  And then they started popping up all over Tennessee.  In the same way people joke about Starbucks (or, at the moment, Dollar General), Jack in the Boxes had a tendency to just appear overnight.  Seriously, I never actually saw one being built.  I would drive by an empty lot one day, then a Jack in the Box the next day.  They just sort of dropped out of the sky, the same way you place buildings in SimCity.

I still probably wouldn’t have eaten there, except I had an opportunity.  They were training secret shoppers (which they called "Jack's Guests"), and they would pay you to go to different Jack in the Box locations and eat food.  I had a full time job, but it was an easy way to make money on the weekends.  My Dad was also looking for a side job as well, so we attended training together. 

For the training, the Jack in the Box company actually flew us to North Carolina and rented us a car and a hotel room.  Sweet.  This meant I actually got to spend some time with my Dad.  It was probably the last time I got to spend any real time with him.  In our spare time we drove to downtown Charlotte to check out Ericsson Stadium (now Bank of America Stadium), which was only a few years old at the time.  I remember we talked about politics (it was an election year), and listened to a Jeff Foxworthy CD.

The training was neat.  They brought in a bunch of Jack in the Box food so we could try it, and see what it was supposed to taste like.  One thing I remember was the trainer telling us about the history of JitB, specifically the E. Coli outbreak in 1993.  The trainer put his foot in his mouth by saying, "But it's good that that happened, because it made us look at our process and now we're the safest restaurant around."  Then he realized what he'd said and completely lost his train of thought.  "Um, er, I mean, it wasn't good - I mean, four kids died - but still, good things came out of it..."

The actual job was pretty nice.  It didn't pay much, but it had its perks.  You record the time you leave the house and when you got back, so they pay you for the entire time you're out.  You drive to the location they give you - usually about three different locations per trip.  At each location, you have instructions on what to order (they reimburse you later), and whether to go through drive-thru or eat in.

Whether drive-thru or dine-in, you have to watch and record the times of three other customers, to see how long it took them to get their order.  You can't reveal you're a secret shopper, so you have to be careful not to tip them off.  So if recording the drive-thru, you have to find a parking spot where you don't look suspicious.  If dining in, you can't have your official papers out.

When you get home, you have to fill out a report with all the times, the quality of the food, the politeness of the employees, and so on.  Then you call an 800 number and read the report to someone else over the phone.  This was actually the most annoying part, because the line was almost always busy, and it took several tries to reach someone.  

Also, the people at HQ didn't all use the same standards.  Some thought all employee/customer interactions should start at "perfect", and you take away a point for each problem.  Others though all interactions should start at "average", and you add or remove points based on good and bad events.  I had to get a feel for who I was talking to before I could read them my ratings.

I was a good fit for that job, because there aren't a lot of foods I don't like.  They didn't want secret shoppers who had to ask for no onions, for example, because then you can't judge the item on whether it meets industry standards.  Unfortunately, my car at the time was a beater, and I had to quit the job after about a year when the car died.

I'm not going to lie, Jack in the Box food is not good.  That said, there's plenty on the menu I will eat, and even enjoy.  I actually like their eggrolls better than the ones at Panda Express.  They have a Homestyle Ranch Chicken Club sandwich that I adore.  When I really want to pig out, the Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger is pretty good, but I feel like I've lost a year of my life whenever I eat one.

But the most perplexing item on their menu has to be their tacos.  They're absolutely awful, and yet, I get cravings for them.  If you've never had a Jack in the Box taco, here's the story:  The taco shells are filled with meat back at the factory, where they are shrink-wrapped, frozen, and shipped to the restaurants.  When you order one, they drop the shell - meat and all - into the french fryer.  When it comes out, they add a slice of cheese - the same kind that goes on burgers - along with lettuce and taco sauce.  If that sounds good to you, I'm telling it wrong.

The fact that it's fried with the meat already in it gives it an uneven consistency.  The parts of the shell that aren't touching meat become crispy and dried out, while the part touching the meat becomes soft and oily.  It honestly doesn't taste like this should even be food.  But something about it is addictive, and I find myself ordering them about once a month.

More recently, Jack in the Box introduced "Tiny Tacos".  God help me, I actually tried them the other day.  For $3 you get a box of 15 little tacos, each about the size of a Chicken McNugget.  These little tacos actually taste better than the full sized version, because the meat fills out the taco more, eliminating the dry/crispy parts of the shell.  

But for $4 you can get the loaded version, where they pour nacho cheese, chives, and taco sauce over your Tiny Tacos.  This is a whole different experience, because now you're basically eating nachos, except the meat is inside the chips.  As junk food goes, it's pretty good.  It really is crap, it has no nutritional value, and if you eat it every day, you'll be dead in a month.  But damn, if they aren't tasty.

Now I'm hungry.

Zelda and Trans Children

Back in the 80s, I was a big fan of the original “Legend of Zelda” for the NES.  It was a confusing game at the time.  If you’ve only played the modern LoZ entries, you’re used to the games having some sort of narrative, and getting clues about where to go next.  But the original was more about trial and error.  The little dialogue it had was either badly translated or intentionally misleading.  It wasn’t uncommon to discover dungeons in the wrong order.  I spent many an hour collecting bombs so that I could blast each and every tile on every screen, looking for secret caves. 

I did beat the game (many times, in fact), but I probably wouldn’t have found everything if it weren’t for friends, magazines, and strategy guides.  But we all had that one friend who claimed to have found everything with no help.  My friend received his copy of LoZ without a box or instruction book.  He started it not knowing the controls, or even who this so-called “Zelda” was.  He went in blind, but found every secret, every heart container, every item.  He beat the game without even knowing what the quest was.  …Or so he claimed.  He was also a pathological liar, so I’ll never know for sure. 

Now I’m going to clumsily attempt to relate this to trans issues.  When my egg cracked in 2005, most people didn't even know the word "transgender".  If trans people were mentioned on TV, they were usually called transexuals, assuming the show was even being kind.  I never connected with "those people" when I was younger, because TV constantly portrayed them as perverts.  

When I had dysphoric thoughts as a child, I never thought to connect them to the "sickos" I saw on talk shows and sitcoms.  Those people were just mentally ill, or so I thought.  So in 2005, when the culmination of all my experiences suddenly coalesced into a crystal clear epiphany, I found myself stumbling in the dark.  Like my friend playing Legend of Zelda, I was had no idea where I was going or what I was looking for.

Today people accuse trans children of being brainwashed by liberal society (which is a really ignorant thing to say), but fifteen years ago trans people weren't all over the news like they are now.  I had to actively seek out information on what was wrong with me.  

In some ways I'm jealous of trans kids today, because they have access to a lot of information that I didn't.  I have no doubt that if I'd had access to the internet when I was a child, I would have known I was trans well before puberty.  But at the same time, I'm almost glad I didn't know.  I know my parents - they wouldn't have even considered letting me take steps in that direction.  

A lot of people wish they could go back to being a kid with the knowledge the have now, but have you ever considered how much of a prison that would be?  Sure, you might get rich from buying stocks or placing sports bets or whatever, but having to relive those years with an adult brain would be a nightmare.  You couldn't tell anyone the truth, because they'd think you were crazy.  You couldn't relate as well to your teenage friends, and you'd basically have to play a role 24/7 while you wait for your friends to mature.  Maybe it's a small price to pay to pave your way to riches, but for me high school was a living Hell and I wouldn't want to relive it.

It would be even worse knowing I was transgender as a child, and knowing I'd still have to go through puberty.  Puberty is a destructive force for trans children.  It changes the body in irreversible ways, and makes later transitioning that much more difficult.  I know, you're reading this and thinking, "Kids are too young to decide they're transgender," and maybe to some extent you're right.  But that's the whole reason for puberty blockers.  All they do is delay puberty until the child is old enough to decide for themselves.

Look, scoff all you want.  But this treatment saves lives.  I was suicidal myself as a teen, and while I obviously never went through with it, I spent a lot of time on that edge.  If I'd known I was trans at the time, and puberty blockers had been a thing, I might have had higher hopes for the future.

A couple of months ago a transgender child made headlines.  Her mother is on her side, but her father doesn't believe it.  The father has been lying to the media at every opportunity, like referring to her puberty blockers as "chemical castration" to make it sound more shocking.  This is not surprising.  In my experience, bigots don't care about facts.  Or at least, they don't like having their beliefs challenged.

But seriously, try to think critically for a moment.  It is hard as Hell for a full grown adult to qualify for transition surgeries.  It requires a years in therapy, then a certain number of years living full-time as the new gender, and all kinds of authorizations.  (Not to mention it's insanely expensive, and rarely covered by insurance.)  And this is for a grown adult, who ought to be allowed to have a say in what happens to their own body.  Do you really think they're frequently allowing gender surgery on kids?

I'm getting sick of seeing the same uninformed arguments over and over.  I'm sick of seeing the same tired "attack helicopter" jokes.  I'm sick of a certain BBC writer gaining fans as he attacks trans people with his bigoted opinions.  I'm sick of people saying things like, "I'm not a bigot, I just believe in science."  ...especially since the actual science supports trans people.

I'm sick of people saying "Yeah, well when I was a child, I wanted to be a fire engine."  Sure, you saw a fire engine go by, and then you pretended to be a fire engine for the next hour.  But the next day you pretended to be a ninja, and the following week you were Optimus Prime.  When I saw the movie Condorman, I pretended I was Condorman for the rest of the day.  And then I never thought of him again.

Nobody is suggesting putting a girl on testosterone because she's a tomboy.  Nobody is suggesting giving a little boy surgery because he wanted to be Rey instead of Luke for Halloween one year.  Attentive parents can tell the difference between a short term desire and a true aspect of the child's personality.

My brother wanted to be an artist as a child.  He had other passing interests - I remember BB guns, weight lifting, and motorcycles - but these lasted a few weeks and were never seen again.  He always went back to art.  It was obvious from a very young age that he was an artist.  And guess what?  He grew up to be an artist.  What. A. Shock.

I won't say I obviously wanted to be a girl, at least not in the same way my brother was obviously an artist.  I will say that I pretended to be female characters as often as I could get away with it.  But I learned early on that I was setting myself up for scorn, so I only picked female characters when playing with certain friends.  Choosing my character was a pretty stressful experience if I didn't know my friend well.

I can also tell you I gave my mother enough clues that she could have added it together if she wasn't in denial.  I remember many, many times when she berated me for wanting a girl toy, or for the feminine way I touched my face when I spoke, and so on.  I won't say she was sexist.  She was mainly worried that I would be bullied if I acted too feminine.  But there were probably way more instances than even I remember, and I did learn to hide certain inclinations to avoid her complaints.

Once again, I know that wanting to play with Barbies and touching your face doesn't make you a girl.  But that's just on top of everything else.  If my mom had been more liberal, and trans information had been as prevalent as it is today, she might have put two and two together.

I've said dumb things in the past.  Looking at some of my early trans blogs makes me cringe, but I'm keeping them up on the internet because learning is a journey.  But I am sick of trans people having to be perfect in order to be accepted.

If a trans person says something untrue - whether on purpose or because they were uninformed - suddenly it's ammo against the trans community.  There are bad people of every type - Black, white, male, female, old, young, cis, trans.  Sometimes trans people do bad things (the Matrix sequels, for example).  The president of this country can mock the disabled and brag about molesting women, but if a cis man pretends to be trans to commit a crime, suddenly all trans people are faking it.

I can promise you one thing - I am not perfect.  But my flaws don't make me wrong about this.  Protect your trans children.  Listen to them.  Don't let your idealized image of your child interfere with seeing who your child really is.

Nobody is trying to make your child trans.  Believe me, the last thing any of us want is for someone who isn't trans to mistakenly transition.  But if someone truly is trans, the earlier they find out, the better.  Nobody is suggesting that underage people get genital surgery.  But puberty blockers save lives.  Period.

Don't Fear The Reaper

We have a three-foot Grim Reaper hanging in our upstairs hallway.  Last October we had it hanging near the front door, but after Halloween we suspended it from the attic door to remind us to take it up there.  Except we haven’t been in the attic since October, so he’s just hanging out for now.  Sometimes he taps me on the shoulder when I walk by, which feels like a bad omen.

It’s a little disconcerting whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and see Death floating there in the hallway.  It’s even more disconcerting the times I wake up and he’s not there.  I wonder where he goes.

The Final Moments

Content Warning: Pet Euthanasia

There’s a meme going around that shames pet owners who don’t stay with their pets when they’re being put to sleep.  According to the meme, a lot of pets spend their final moments in terror, and keep looking around for their owners.  I’m sure this does happen, but I don’t feel it’s right to shame owners who don’t have the emotional strength to watch their pets die.  And I have to question how they really know the animal is looking for their owner.  I think in some cases the pets are actually scanning the room for exits.  Restrained animals tend to do that.

When I took Sybil in, the vet told me that sometimes the owner’s presence can actually make things more difficult.  Sometimes the pet picks up on their owner’s sadness, and it makes them anxious.  Of course, Sybil was way beyond picking up on my emotional state.  She was incapable of noticing anything around her.  Which brings me to another question – how often are totally alert animals brought in to be euthanized?  I'm not asking that to prove a point, I really have no idea.  

I know this is a run-on sentence, but if only a subset of pets being euthanized have the presence of mind to look around the room, and a subset of those are looking for means of escape rather than their owners, and another subset would actually be more anxious with their owner present, then maybe the owners who leave early aren't the monsters the meme creator makes them out to be.

Assuming my experience with Sybil was normal, it’s a two stage process.  First they give the pet a shot that makes them lose consciousness.  This is a good time for the owner to stay with the pet and say goodbye.  Once that shot has had a few minutes to take effect, they give the pet a second shot that stops their heart.  This is the part where many owners should bow out.  The animal won’t know.  But if you can't even bear the first part, I have nothing but sympathy for you.

I’ve had three cats pass away in my adult life.  Banchi died in our home, overnight, after a few weeks of complaining about pain.  I was just about to schedule a vet appointment when she died.  I swore never to wait that long again.  Honi just melted one day; becoming completely unresponsive.  We did not stay for her euthanization, and sometimes I regret it.  The whole ordeal lacked closure somehow.  How do I know she didn’t wriggle out of the vet’s arms, run out the backdoor, and die alone in the woods?  How do I know the vet didn’t take her home and use her as a bait cat in an underground dogfighting ring?  Okay, so neither of those are realistic scenarios, but the point is I don’t know.  I just walked out and left her there, and for all I know, anything could have happened next.

With Sybil, I needed closure.  I had to see her leave this world.  It’s the same reason we have open casket funerals.  I had to see it to believe it.  It’s the only way the event will form a solid memory in my mind.  But not everyone has that need.  Or for some people, a lack of closure isn’t nearly as terrifying as watching their pet die.  Some people might not even want closure, they might even want to imagine that the vet took their pet home, healed it up, and gave it a nice place to live for a few more years. 

But different people have different needs, and it’s not our place to judge them.