Tierra Y Libertad! (And, uh, candles with porny-sounding names! Right?)

Figure 1: No soy mentirosa, General Zapata;  es verdad, conoczo a Ud. muy bien y tengo muchisimo respeto por su defensa de la gente mexicana!

Remember my thrift spree a few days ago, where I bought my nephews a shit-ton of dress-up garb for a present from the Halloween merch?  (And why the fuck not?  Every little boy needs phony Superman muscles and a coal miner's light strap, right?)

Well, I bought a few things for Mama, too. 

One of the things was a promotional candle from Pink Taco, a Mexican restaurant chain from Los Angeles that Lindsay Lohan's old boyfriend owns.  It's a long, pink, glass-encased pillar candle, resembling those "milagro" relig candles that you can buy in the Latino food section of the grocery.

There was much hardy-har-har about the name when these restaurants opened - in case you're a moron, more info on that here - but it's a pretty popular place.  I was sorta surprised that the damn thing was only marked at 99 cents.

Anyhoo.  It was sitting on the checkout counter while the cashier rang me up and this old woman walked by and said, "Hey, that's Emiliano Zapata.  He's a Mexican hero, you know."

Sure enough, the candle has a pic of Zapata, and he's framed by the dirty words "Pink Taco" and other Mexican-y images. 

"Have you ever heard of him?" she asked me, fingering the candle.  I thought for a second she was going to try to take it from me.

"Oh, yes," I said.  Remember, I'm all about placating the crazies.

"Yes, he saved Mexico," she said, looking deeply at him in the candle.  I was getting freaked out that next she'd ask me what "pink taco" was.

"Have you ever seen Viva Zapata?" she asked. "Marlon Brando was in it."

"Yep, I've seen it," I said.  Which is true.  And Marlon Brando was totally way to fucken tall to play a Mexican at the turn of the century. 

But I wasn't going to say that to the lady, who was now getting herself a shopping cart.  After all, I'm the Hispanic Studies/Spanish major who was buying a 99 cent candle with the words "Pink Taco" on it.

Thrift stores may sell lotsa things but irony ain't one them.

Image via Wikimedia.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Hahaha, I still can't believe there is a restaurant named "Pink Taco"! Crazy!

[Carrie]

I put it in our bathroom right next to the toity. It seems to fit.

[Kevin]

Hi, my name is kevin. i live in peoria, IL. um, anyways i just started a website called the thrift score, and i noticed that a bunch of people call their thrift finds "scores" as well. anyways, just letting you know about my site in case you want to join in the fun. i'm surfing around trying to find people who might be interested in it. it's kinda unorganized now, so i'm taking ideas and requests and whatnot.

the address is at http://www.thrift-score.com

thanks for your time,
kevin

[Busby SEO Test]

Well, thats the lindsay profile that i know.. :) thanks for the information. Anyway nice to see your blog here...:)