Recently I ate at Vaquero’s with some of my family and friends. While dining exclusively in the finest of booths Vaquero’s had to offer, some thoughts came to me…

(only after they put 10 of us in a corner booth)

1. There is no way to look cool as a guy sitting right on the corner of the booth. If you put one arm up you look silly. Two arms up you look like a stretched out bird. Two arms up and leaning to the side puts you in a less appealing position. Whatever you do, don’t put both legs up on the booth and lean to the side with one arm up. Even if it is around your wife there is no coolness to it.

2. Bring a birthday cake that has black icing on it. Maybe have it decorated with a racetrack or something. This provides a solid 23 minutes of entertainment if you bring a child along. Once you teach them how to make their teeth and tongue turn black, things just get better.

3. As an addition to the previous idea, bring some open minded adults along to teach the child also how to make grey icing, or how to scientifically dip a spoon covered in icing into their waterglass to create a “Dishwasher” like effect.

4. I affectionately call this next technique “Musical Meals…” (which happened on accident, but I will explain the experience as best as I can.)

First, everyone order something remotely similar.

When the food comes out, start calling out what you got (but only partially. Ex: If you order a plate with burritos and tamales just start saying “I had the one with rice, and cheese on the side”.

Then, each person starts to randomly say things off the menu like: “Burrito” “queso” “nachos” “Mole Sauce”…

The result will be the following:

They take 3/4 of the food back to the cook’s window, regroup, and come back 42 seconds later organized and ready to roll.

Life is good.