Dear Kid Taco,

Where to begin? When I hear your voice cracking over the intercom, I believe I can count on the following, on any given occasion:

• When I say “beans instead of meat”, I won’t have to repeat it. I won’t have to repeat anything at all, for that matter.
• Similarly, I will not have to come up with three to five different ways of saying “beans instead of meat” before one of them seems to make sense to you.
• I will list as many as a half-dozen items I hope to obtain. I will say them quickly, and some of them will be special orders. If I choose to insert an “um” here or there, I will not find that my attempts at restarting my recital of the list collide with any unnecessary, even absurd insertions of “go ahead when you’re ready”, “is that everything” or anything of the sort from you. You will pay keen attention to my inflection and accurately recognize when my order is complete. Not until then will you speak.
• You will not ask me if I want any sauce over the intercom. You have no button on your register for indicating my sauce needs, therefore it would be an inappropriate question at this stage of our transaction. It can, and should, wait. You know this.
• You will recite my order back to me. It will be perfection. You will say it better than I did, even: concise, accurate, perhaps in a poetic cadence. You will tell me my total, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound about right.
• You will tell me to go to the second window. You have no need for assistance from a first window, nor would you trust any such assistance. You understand the importance of control in this kind of organization. The ship you run is small and of limited utility, but exceptionally tight.
• As I drive to the second window, I will not be surprised by someone leaning out the first window, wondering why I am rolling right by.
• The LCD with my total on it, used to ensure that you are not pocketing my hard-earned money in the interest of buying yourself a better life, will read precisely the numbers you quoted me earlier.
• When I hand you my money, you will thank me. Almost certainly, you are trained to do that, but you don’t have to do it and I want you to know that I notice the sincerity in your voice.
• You will process my payment and most times will need to hand me change. Here, Kid Taco, is where you excel in a gentle but important way that no so-called drive-thru “expert” ever has before: upon handing me my change, you will hang back a few moments, allowing me time to appropriately deal with it. You may fiddle with something inside, or pretend to still be filling my drink. We both know you filled that drink while I was driving up. You were ready to hand it to me before I even got there, because you are a monument to efficiency. But now, as I make an attempt at keeping one small corner of my life organized, by putting the coins in my vehicle’s designated coin storage area, and filing the bills into my wallet in order of denomination, you refrain from doing anything that would make me feel pressure to hurry it up. It is because of you, Kid Taco, that I will not find myself stuffing wadded up bills into the cup holder. From the corner of your eye, you will patiently observe me finally sliding the wallet back into the pocket of my pants. You will allow me one more moment to straighten back out, readjust the seatbelt, and clear out the cup holder for the forthcoming beverage. I will turn to face you, and only then will you attempt to hand me my drink.
• Upon delivering said drink, you will not make any snide “here’s your bucket of soda” comments, which is more than I can say for my wife.
• You will bump the bill of your cap on the top of the window frame. You will adjust it and scowl at the frame as if this has never happened to you before.
• As you stage my bags and wait for my food items to be passed to you from the kitchen, you will ask me if I want any sauce. I will request Fire Sauce. You will immediately place it in a bag, eschewing the popular practice of haphazardly inserting the sauce procurement at a random point in the process. You know this is the most commonly forgotten step, and you want to get it right. You are proud.
• When the food items arrive, you will file them quickly but neatly into the bags. You will check the wraps to make sure they are stable and accurately marked. When I get home, I will reach into the bag with confidence, knowing that I needn’t be concerned about pulling my hand back covered in beans.
• You will hand the bags to me, smile, and thank me again. Your voice will again break, no less than three times, in a delightfully endearing way. You will tell me to have a nice evening, but will not bother to suggest that I come back for a return visit. We both know that is not necessary, because my friend, words fail. You will know by the want in my eyes that I have no choice but to return.
• My level of confidence in your work will, due to all prior points, be so great by this stage that I will not feel the need to look in my bags. I will not taste my bucket of soda. I will drive away, smiling, and not give a single thought to what I am driving away with until I and my order have arrived safely at home. Only then will I inspect it, for the sole purpose of consuming it.
• I will have received all ordered items.
• I will have received beans, instead of meat.
• My special orders will be special. They will be marked with little pink “SPECIAL” stickers. They will be in their own bag, separate from the non-special items.
• There will be sauce. It will not be Mild. It will not be Hot. It will be Fire Sauce.
• The Fire Sauce will be plentiful. There will be leftovers for the sauce drawer.

Kid Taco, I tell you this because as an artist I think you’ll understand. I want to help you, I do. But I know not how and think it best to let you control your destiny. You deserve better than what you have, but any attempts by me to assist would be misdirected, mishandled, or misconstrued. I believe our mutual understanding of this unfortunate fact is what keeps our relationship firmly rooted in the professional. For now, Kid Taco: I thank you. You are perhaps too young to understand, but there are times when the only thing I need to make a hard day feel like something other than a total loss is for my taco experience to go well. I salute you, Kid Taco. Best wishes for the future.

Sincerely yours.