Olathe Taco Odyssey (The long version)

Here's the whole story of our “Olathe Taco Odyssey.” Beginning at 12:30 p.m. last Friday, Alex, Ben and myself went to these fine Olathe fast food taco establishments: Taco Via, Taco Bell, Taco Bueno and Taco Johns. At each place, we dined in (no drive thrus for us), ordered one tasty taco each (Ben and I ordered hard shells, Alex is a soft shell taco guy), and ate. We were back home an hour after we began having consumed four tacos, a large soda and spent a grand total of $16.89. Here are a few things that we learned:
· Taco Via has the most expensive tacos and Taco Bell has the least expensive. ($1.15 vs. $0.79)
· Taco Via played praise and worship music and had the Ten Commandments displayed on their wall. (Maybe it’s worth the extra $0.36 to have praise and worship piped over the intercom and to have the “Top Ten” posted. That was an unexpected surprise. I was taken aback to see an eleventh commandment: “Thou shall not be a glutton.” Just kidding it wasn’t there, but maybe it should have been).
· We decided to pray before each “meal” in each restaurant. I don’t know that tacos need more prayer than other foods, but I think if you are eating at four different fast food joints in less than an hour then you probably need four times the prayer (and four times the Rolaids).
· Taco Via’s tacos were the messiest (but they also had napkins at the table, so clean-up didn’t mean an additional trip to the “napkin center”); Taco Bell’s were the wettest (read: Greasiest); Taco Bueno’s were the longest; and, Taco Johns had more lettuce than meat on their tacos.
· Taco Bell provided peppermint candy for one’s after dining pleasure. (Always a plus when eating extra greasy tacos with extra hot sauce).
· Taco Bueno and Taco Johns each have a salsa bar to compliment their $0.99 tacos.
· On Taco Johns’ salsa bar they have a green, eye-watering, hotter-than-hot taco sauce.
· Taco Via cleans up your mess (there were no noticeable trash cans), but Taco Johns delivers your tacos to your table (I believe the extra hot green sauce and the “delivered-to-your-table” tacos are related items. It is my assertion that the fine Taco Johns employees deliver your tacos because once you’ve tasted that eye-watering, green salsa you might be a little woozy. Or maybe I was just woozy because at that point I had already eaten tacos from Taco Via, Bell and Bueno. Burp.).
· We each liked a different place. Ben liked Taco Via, Alex liked Taco Bell, and I preferred Taco Bueno. (I liked Taco Bueno in spite of the knowledge that another Centralite had a very bad experience at a Taco Bueno. It seems that this man discovered something really, really yucky in his taco. Not deterred, because of that knowledge-- I went, ate, and enjoyed. And I didn’t find anything that resembled “really, really yucky” in my taco! But I must confess I did inspect my taco with the same gusto as a drug sniffing dog at the airport before partaking.).

All in all it was a fun lunch. We laughed, ate, and had a great debate on which taco joint was the best. I’m not sure if our “Olathe Taco Odyssey” was what old Solomon had in mind when he wrote: “Point your kids in the right direction and when they are old they won’t be lost” (Proverbs 22:6. The Message), but I think it helped. Remember, in raising our kids the goal is to build positive memories, to be a positive influence, and to have meaningful conversations. I think all of those things happened last Friday. Maybe an “Olathe Taco Odyssey” isn’t for everyone, but all of us can get creative in finding ways to make good, positive, and even holy moments with our children. In my book, the afternoon was well worth the $16.89 and the bottle of Tums that I later consumed. In fact, it went so well we are contemplating an “Olathe Burger Odyssey” next. We can’t eat a burger at each place (without breaking our soon to be included Commandment #11 on gluttony); still, if we could divide each burger into thirds, then eating at the Olathe fast food burger joints might be doable. So Wendy’s, A&W, Backyard Burger, Burger King, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Sonic, and Culvers here we come. Burp.