Taco is a Verb
My 20-year-old nephew, Austin, is the kind of kid I wish I had been at 20. He just finished his sophomore year at The Biggest Party School In California, where he is the team captain and starting goalie on the lacrosse team and, according to some weird lacrosse governing body responsible for keeping track of such things, the top collegiate lacrosse goalie in the state. But athletic achievement aside, Austin is just a really cool guy. (I believe the kids are fond of using the word “pimp” to describe people like him.) He’s fun to be with (my kids think he’s God), has intentionally grown and proudly worn a classic 1970s porn moustache, and has just recently started to curse in front of his parents.
The latter of these characteristics came to light Friday when Austin returned from a fourth of July visit with some friends in Newport Beach and brought with him quite a tale. By way of context, you should know that Newport Beach on the fourth is pure fucking chaos. (That f-word was for you, Austin.) The beachside part of the city is overrun with drunken frat boys on beach cruisers and bikini-clad girls wearing more coconut-scented suntan oil than actual fabric. (Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that.) (In fact, there may be nothing more right.)
On this particular day of the year, the main drag through this area of city, Balboa Boulevard, is trimmed from four lanes of traffic to two. The other two lanes are reserved for bicycle traffic – and there’s a lot of it. In fact this two-lane bike zone was the setting for Austin’s crazy story. The way he tells it, he was riding among the masses, on his way to who-knows-where, when some drunk, 17-year-old douchebag with a girl riding on his handlebars was cruising in the opposite direction. Austin saw the kid (whom we’ll call Fuckhead, which is perfect since Austin likes to curse now) veering into oncoming bike traffic and adjusted his course to stay clear of Fuckhead. But Fuckhead was so drunk – and so 17 – that he drifted even farther into the opposite lane and rammed the front tire of his into Austin’s back wheel.
This is where the story gets really good.
Austin says the force of Fuckhead’s front tire bent the back wheel of his own bike in half. More specifically, he said his back wheel “taco’d.” This is a term I’ve never heard before, but I think it signals a bright new day in the bastardization of the English language. Anything that has ever been a noun is now a verb. Open the floodgates. Hurry up, before you get burrito’d. Or footed. Or underweared.
When he got to his feet and realized what he’d done, Fuckhead tried to flee the scene. Nice kid, that Fuckhead. But Austin, being a smart guy and a superior athlete, reached out and grabbed Fuckhead’s bike – specifically the little Dorothy and Toto basket on the front of it – to prevent him from escaping what he had coming. At this point Fuckhead uttered the following exclamation, which makes abundantly clear that fact that he is a pussy.
Fuckhead said, “Get your hands off my basket!”
(“Hey! Hey! Hey, hey hey! Macho, macho man (macho man, yeah!)! I’ve got to be…a macho man!”)
After he let loose this phrase for the ages, Fuckhead made an aggressive move toward my nephew, which is about as smart as jamming a railroad spike into your eyeball because Austin would have beaten that little bitch until he looked like an uncooked piece of carne asada. Before that first step landed on Balboa Boulevard, five Newport Beach police officers swarmed in to break up the brewing brouhaha. One cop went toward Austin, another toward Fuckhead and the other three were somewhere in between.
Austin said something to his cop about wanting the other kid to pay for the damage to his bike. Fuckhead heard this and despite having a police officer right in front of him, he barked back at my nephew. “I’m not paying for shit!”
At this point, one of the cops said something to Fuckhead about shutting up so he didn’t get into even more trouble.
Fuckhead said, “I wasn’t talking to you, pig!”
On the list of things NOT to say to a police officer, that one is off the charts. It’s not even on the list because…duh! That’s how the cop felt too, as evidenced by the fact that he immediately did that weird wrist thing to Fuckhead, which put the kid on the ground, which is where he stayed until the paddy wagon arrived, which is where he was probably violated in ways even people who curse in front of their parents can’t comprehend.
Happy 4th of July, Fuckhead. You fuckhead.
*****BREAKING OUT THE GOOD STUFF*****
I’m taking a one-week blog vacation, starting right now. That’s the bad news (or the good news, depending on your perspective). This is the first extended vacation I’ve taken from Dad Gone Mad in five years.
The great news is that I’ve blackmailed some of my favorite people on (and off) the Internet to provide content in this space while I’m gone. There will be at least one new post every day this week, and more than that on some days, provided by the likes of:
* Karen Gerwin, my agent, who has agreed to publish her own writing here under extreme duress (but had no choice because I sent her a neti pot and a Hot Wife t-shirt and she totally owes me)
* Stefanie Wilder-Taylor from Baby On Bored
* Dr. Heather Wittenberg from BabyShrink
* Rachel Shukert, author of Have You No Shame?
* Mike Adamick from Cry It Out
* Y from Joy Unexpected
* Crystal from Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper
* Rebecca from Girl’s Gone Child
* Sarah from Whoorl
* Hopefully, possibly, if we’re all lucky, the return to the Internet of a former, VERY popular blogger, right here on this platform. You know who you are, blog person. Don’t let us down.
* If we are all very lucky, my wife.
I leave you in the collective good hands of these writers and a few others (who as of yet don’t know that they will be writing guest posts).
Be kind to them. Make them feel at home. And make sure you all clean up after yourselves before I come back next Monday.
Have a nice vacation. Yes, taco is a verb and I only know that becuz I have teens. Newport and Huntington are insane every year on the 4th so this year we went to San Clemente. A guy got tackled by the police right in front of my very eyes ... I guess that's just the 4th in S. Cal! (Insane!) Congrats to Austin on learning the F word!
"Austin would have beaten that little bitch until he looked like an uncooked piece of carne asada"
That was awesome.
And that's how you wheel by someone's site and pay them a compliment without calling them mean names.
When you come back, I'll bet you are gonna be all vactioned.
And, by "vactioned", I meant "vacationed".
come back soon...hopefully before your trusted servents turn you into a snivelng idiot, in our eyes. Very easy to do. Everyone has their own thing...and way of saying things.
Loved the Fuckhead story.
See I thought this story was going to be about something else when we started talking about tacos as a verb.
I have my fingers crossed that the mystery blogger is the one I hope it is.
Jim Gaffigan says in that dumb show "My Boys": "I like verbs that are things. I think after I couch for a while I'm going to go sandwich."
I don't know how the hell Mike has the time. He is a machine.
It'll be nice to see something from Heather. I love her. I'm not afraid to say it (over here where my wife won't see).
Wait, that party school? Is it still UCSB?
Have a great vacash.
tacoed has been used to describe a bent rim for as long as I can remember.
I recall hearing it in the eighties, and that was in Idaho which is not known for being on the bleeding edge of hipness.
Have a good one Danny!
If I start chanting "Rock STAR! Rock STAR!" right now, does that mean it will be true?
Who else is guest posting? Did you ask Momo Fali? She'd be an awesome guest poster. Of course, I'm all booked up (heh) which is why I won't be guest posting... ;)
My nephew really is that cool. It would be okay with me if our son grew up to be like his cousin, minus the mustache.
A week long vacation from your blog? This will be an intersting experiement. And I get a front row seat.
Wait... You have THAT MANY guest-posters for a one-week vacation? You crazy, boy.
Fingers are crossed for RSM!!!
Wait! I just remembered my Huntington Beach surf-lingo: "Dude. You totally taco-del-rio'd that!"
Once again, I was beaten to the punch and now look horribly unoriginal, but I'll say it anyway because I am a stubborn son of a bitch-- man, that seems like a lot of guest posters for a one-week vacation.
Logically, my mind jumps to the likely scenario that you have commanded them to each type unrelated single sentences and then combine them all to make a week's worth of impenetrably cryptic non sequitur posts that still draw thousands upon thousands of readers, thereby transforming them into some kind of Voltron-like superblogger.
Or did you just recruit that many guest posters to imply that it takes that many people just to replace you? If so, you are short by a handful, buddy.
There's your pick-me-up for the week. Have fun!
I just HAVE to say, that I coined the verb burrito'd in 2001, when my husband, who insists on sleeping atop the covers, while I am snuggled under, rolled to close to MY side. Hence, I was stuck in the covers, all rolled up, like a burrito. Can also be used as in "man, don't be burrito-ing ME", "or relax, I won't burrito you".
HAVE A WONDERFUL VACATION!!!! You will be missed. But I'm totally looking forward to the guest posts (especially Hot Wife - fingers crossed)!
Enjoy the vacation and leave the keys. We'll need to water your plants, right?
Danny, that was a great story, but you could have ended it with ...“I wasn’t talking to you, pig!” The End. Because just imagining what happened after that made my weekend.
But yes, taco is a verb as you now know, and I can't wait to see what your guests are cooking up for your absence. Have a great break!
I hope the guest blogger is RSM
OH, and have a great vacation.
Oh man! You and your first commenter are so right about Newport, Huntington AND San Clemente. I think my wildest 4ths ever were in San Clemente come to think of it....
Anyhow great story, I am going to ask my teen son if he's ever heard the word "taco'd" I feel so behind the times.
Fortunately, and unfortunately, there are more "Fuckheads" in the world than ever. It's unfortunate because we have to deal with their shit. It's fortunate because their dumbass behavior gives us so much to talk about and laugh at. Austin should have pulled away from one of the "Pigs" and at least got one punch in and taco'd his lip.
Sooo...
I'm a regular, yet quiet reader of yours, directed here by Jen Lancaster, one of my favorite authors. I'm not an internet creeper, but since you put it all out there, I'm allowed to respond so...
Is Austin single? I'm a 20-year-old who goes to the University of Washington and loves So. Cal. I'm double majoring in Social Welfare and Psychology and consistently hold a spot on the Dean's List. If this doesn't matter to him, then you can mention that I'm a former gymnast and dancer that has a thing for cool facial hair.
I am proud to have coined the phrase "Easter Bunny'ing" and I'd like to get it around the globe. It basically translates to getting easily distracted while doing routine tasks. I got it from that adult ADD medication commercial where the lady is in a business meeting and she keeps getting flashes of different scenes in her head, one of them being a very large Easter Bunny with pink ears. Use it like "I went to fix dinner but I Easter Bunny'd and ended up doing dishes instead." Or "Hey Easter Bunny, I thought you were gonna get me a drink, now you're fixing a light switch!" (The last one happened in our house).
Also, here is a list of things you wanna avoid saying to us "pigs":
Bacon/pork comments
Any donut reference
I pay your salary
Don't you have something better to do? (This will just buy you more of our precious time)
I know my rights! (Really? What law school did you attend?)
I could go on and on, but mostly, we find this stuff makes for funny stories to go home and tell our family and friends.
My kid (12) says taco'd (tacoed? I feel like Dan Quayle here.. t-a-c-o-...e) to mean dissed or burned. (Like if someone gets you with "Your mom [does whatever]" or anything relating to Deez Nuts.) The first time I heard it I was pretty taken aback. I think it was something along the lines of "Oh man she totally just taco'd him!" and my mind was way too far in the gutter.