Memory Lane: Sad time at Whataburger

All names may or may not be changed to protect the people in the story. You will never know.

Around 2005, I was making trips to Houston each weekend as most of my good friends had moved to Houston from my small town several hours away. I would enjoy going to car meets, street racing and general tom foolery.

One afternoon, I meet up with my friend who I will call Norm. Norm was a friend I've had for a while who I met originally when he was a delivery driver for a pizza place. He loved cars too so we became friends. We meet up around 4 pm and decided to go grab something to eat. Getting in his car, he handed me a little fanny pack with his pipe and some weed in it. While he drove into a humongous parking lot for a equally enormous shopping mall, he drove until we were parked under a tree, looking through a small cut of hedges at people at the stop light.

"Did you know, from the entrance of the parking lot to where we are located is longer than a quarter mile?" Norm said, as he strikes the bowl. Norm was smart and calculated about his risk taking. He realized if any police officer might happen to see us, it would take him so long to get to the entrance and then to where we were, we could easily be long gone the other direction while laughing or park and walk into the mall. We became brazen with our blazin.

After getting sufficiently high, we took a few victory laps around the parking lot to air out and then we found our way down Westheimer, creeping slowly down to our stoner place of choice, Taco Cabana. While going the road, we found our self getting caught at most red lights along the way. Not being forced to pay attention, I looked around at all the other people in cars near me.

Looking towards the drivers side, I notice a red Ford Ranger. These tiny trucks are small and just two people can make feel crowded. In this little Ranger I saw a beautiful young women around the age of 24. She has silky blonde hair, a lovely face and from what I could see from the window, a body to match. Beside here was a fellow, around the same age or older, slightly over weight but more importantly, almost two knuckles deep into digging a monster booger out of the top of his sinuses. A normal person would wonder if he was looking for gold.

I nudge Norm and point. He sees the same thing I did, a pretty girl with a guy bumping her with his elbow while digging in his nose. Its bizarre to watch as she works so hard to pretend she doesn't notice hes just inches away from her with his meat hooks in his snot pockets.

We come to another red light and the traffic staggers, taking the Mr Booger and the little ranger of weird out of sight. The weather is late fall and people are driving down the road with the windows down to enjoy the cool breeze, our car and the ranger being no exception. When we come to a full stop, I get a brilliant idea.

Plopping my ass on the window ledge of my friends door, I begin shouting "HEY BOOGER PICKER, QUIT PICKING YOUR BOOGERS!!!!" i slide back into the car seat, already erupting with laughter before my ass hits the fabric. Norm is also laughing so hard, he fails to notice the light has turned green but in Houston, people are quick to let you know with their horn.

Norm quickly zooms up in his peppy little car and when back in traffic, we look to our left and who do we see, Mr Booger and the blonde beauty and hes MAD AF. Seeing how mad he is and how she is having trouble keeping from laughing makes me laugh even harder. I'm mean I'm ugly laughing which is up there with ugly crying. I start having an asthma attack and start grasping and pointing at him while laughing and gasping for air.

I can only speculate that the guy likely thinks I went into some sort of laugh induced seizure or wasn't willing to get mocked by a person with an autoimmune disorder, because shortly after he turned off never to be seen again. We drove the rest of the way chuckling to ourselves as we pulled into Taco Cabana.

Most Taco Cabanas I've ever been to have been laid out exactly the same. You walk in where there is a order area, next to it is where you get your food, toppings and drinks, then there is a dining room and a door straight out with seating outside.

When we walked in, we noticed two lovely latina ladies, likely around 19-21 years of age. Being super high and a bad case of the munchies hitting, I ignored them and promptly ordered my quesadilla and drink. As I get my drink and Norm places his order, I watch as the two young ladies walk over to a very husky well dressed Hispanic fellow who has wedged himself into the corner of the establishment. He has several plates of food in front of him and the ladies are sitting on each side of him with their on meals set aside separately.

Once I get my food, I take my tray over to the table next to the door leading outside. Being high and fearing spilling my drink all over (Fanta Strawberry is tasty but stains like a MoFo), I make a point of watching my tray as I set it down on the table and spin around to sit in the seat. As I did this, Norm was coming behind me with his tray of food. The large fellow made a comment to Norm, acting as if he knew him and they were friends.

Norm, being also higher than a eagles asshole completely overreacted. Norm froze, stared at the guy and began to say "Uh... I dont know you... I DONT KNOW YOU BRO!"

Before my ass hit the seat, I already started picking up my tray again and using my shoulder, started opening the door to go sit outside.

As we walk out, Norm and I stand in the doorway and stare at a African American man and women making out while sitting on the table. As we stonerly stand and stare at the show, the couple notice they're being watched and stop, turning to look at us and expressing "Sorry guys, were closed"

I look at Norm who in turn looks back at me. Not completely understanding situation and noticing the women is wearing a Taco Cabana employee outfit, I came to the conclusion she was talking about the store.

"NU HUH! This is Taco Cabana! This place is open 24 hours!" I exclaim with real feeling of knowledge.

The couple look at each other, then look at Norm and I who then look at each other and back at them. We all start rolling laughing but Norm and I spend the next hour laughin like mongoloids who heard a dog fart in its sleep, long after the couple left. Norm had another place to go so we drove back to the mall and I picked up my car then headed over to my friend we will call John.

John was a laid back fellow who I also met through car racing. We both liked the same type of car and we liked weed, so naturally we also became friends. After spending most of afternoon watching Most Extreme Elimination Challenge and smoking copious amounts of cannabis, we had the grand idea of going to Whataburger and getting some late night munches.

Driving down the road from his apartment, we came to a stop light. Beside us a little hatch back pulled up with two extremely attractive ladies in the driver and passenger side seat. Looking over, I notice one of the ladies looking back over at us. The driver asks me what are doing. I inform her we are going to Whataburger to get Milkshakes. She asks if John and I would like to party in private with her and her friend. I invite them to come to whataburger with us, I would get them something to eat and they could even get bacon and cheese if they wanted. They suggested we go back to Johns place. I tell them I'm really hungry.

Frustrated, they burnt off to the right when the light turned green and we continued on our journey to burger and fry goodness in silence. While ordering the food, I ask John what he thought about all of what taken place, maybe to get a better picture of what happened because I was really REALLY shit faced.

He turns towards me, grabs my shoulder, looks me square in the eyes and goes "They were hookers"

I was shocked. I was devastated. I was confused.

I'm not an ugly fellow. I have a amazingly beautiful wife, a real solid 8 out of 10. I've had my fair share of beautiful girlfriends in the past. This hit me hard. I stood there, with my little order number plastic card in my hand, looking at the wall like a lost puppy that was left on the side of the road.

John notices this, even after the brought our food and waited for me to hand the order tag back.

"Whats wrong with you man, they were hookers. Its fine, get over it. Its not a big deal." He says as he grabs the tray of food.

"I know man, but its still hard. Here we are, two not completely ugly fellows, driving in a nice car and there they are driving along and they see us. They saw us and went 'I bet those two guys will totally pay for pussy'. I never knew I gave off paying for pussy vibes bro. This is all alot to take in."

I sit and eat my fries like a morose little simp, sipping on my sadness strawberry shake. I decided then that hey, so what if they believe I would pay for sex, at least out of all the guys that would pay for sex, they would pick us as least repulsive.