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Should You Be Allowed To Order Fajitas at Someone’s Birthday Dinner?
by
An absolute parade of food. The bottle service of Mexican restaurants. Center table, center of attention, smoking the place out. Of course, we’re talking about the Tex-Mex mainstay that always catches your eye on the menu — sizzlin’ fajitas.
Once the server approaches the table with a stack of plates for everyone, you know it’s on. There’s a moment when the guacamole, shredded cheese, and pico de gallo get set down where the anticipation can only compared to the five minutes leading up to the running of The Kentucky Derby. We’re off to the races and my bet is placed on my horse walking off the track covered in roses.
The dump of the meat and vegetables onto the platter. The pomp and circumstance of the waiter bringing that sizzling plate to the table. The looks you receive from fellow patrons thinking, “Ooh, I should’ve got that.”
There are moments in life when you feel invincible. Wearing a tuxedo. Cracking that first bachelor party beer. When “Black And Yellow” would come on at a party in 2011. And, of course, when you can barely see the rest of the table because you’re getting bombarded with smoke coming from the pile of meat and veggies in front of you.
Today, however, I encountered something I never thought I’d have to confront: Fajita Shaming. Here’s the culprit:
Here’s a brief of the above video for anyone reading this from the stall in their office complex: This woman claims that you should not order fajitas at someone else’s birthday party because it steals the thunder from the guest of honor. Her reasons point to the distracting celebratory act of eating fajitas, the fact that they always arrive at the table first before the birthday boy’s plate, “doing the most” with the wooden board under the skillet, the waiter paying too much attention to the fajita eaters, and that one is “simply doing too much on my day.”
The Main Character part of my personality gets this. But the brain I have in my skull is absolutely disgusted by the idea that someone would gatekeep fajitas for their own personal gain. Depraved behavior.
Upon seeing this video on my timeline, I had to look inward. Just this past weekend, I celebrate the fortieth birthday of my friend and business partner, David Ruff, at the famous Matt El Rancho’s. And yes, I decided to split sizzling steak fajitas with another attendee. I even took video per this tweet that Substack won’t let me embed because they (justifiably) hate Elon Musk.
I reached out to David Ruff through productivity software platform Slack for comment. His team responded promptly:
I have no issue with anyone ordering fajitas at my birthday dinner. A sizzling plate of 'tas just puts more eyeballs on our table which is arguably the brattiest behavior one could do at a restaurant.
I always try to put myself in the shoes of people I disagree with. Do I always do that? Well, no, but that’s beside the point. In this case, however, I’m truly trying to imagine this situation if it occurred at my own birthday. After a significant review of all the information at-hand, I simply can’t come up with a scenario where I don’t want to see my absolute boys (and their wives) absolutely running riot on a plate of sizzling fajitas. That scenario simply doesn’t exist in any of my alternate realities.
And honestly, that’s how it should be.
This week on Circling Back’s episode of Exactly Five Minutes, Dave and I discussed the composition of our ideal fajita for — you guessed it — exactly five minutes. You can subscribe and listen here.
Southwest Is Doing What?
By Dave
Where were you when you heard the news that Southwest is getting rid of open seating? I was taking a sip of my coffee while scrolling Twitter looking for sensible takes on the issues of the day. “Whoa,” I said to myself. Bombshell.
Just like that, Southwest is parting ways with its one distinguishing characteristic. As a family that flies SW at least twice a year, it’s a tough day. When I broke the news to my three-year-old, he replied as follows:
“Are you serious?........Wow. Honestly, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. The one constant in this country is corporate greed and the looming influence of activist investors. These corporations don’t care about people like us. They’ll probably claim that customers weren’t happy and point to some survey done by an allegedly neutral third party that says their customers weren’t happy with an open seating policy, but I’m not falling for that.”
Breaking news like this to an innocent child is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It’s gross. Like wearing shorts on a plane, you can’t help but feel a little disgusting today. But I’ll remember the days of open seating fondly. Was there anything better than setting an alarm on your phone to remind you to check-into the flight? Sure, in your twenties it was a bit of a buzzkill to be reminded that your trip was about to end and you should probably stop double-fisting Miami Vices at the swim-up bar. But these days? I welcome it.
It’s all about mitigating risk. Being wildly hungover and in boarding position C-21 on a Boeing is about as risky as it gets. Knowing I could end up like a pathetic loser with a bad boarding group is enough to keep me in check on the last day of a trip. Two glasses of water, please! The notification that it’s time to check-in is a little bump of adrenaline that you’ll probably need to make it through the last leg of the trip anyway. Not only will I be making dinner, but I won’t need a Vyvanse to go out after!
Open seating is one of the few beacons of freedom we have while flying. And now it’s gone. Ripped out of our lives like a door on a mid-flight Boeing 737. I guess nothing is sacred anymore.
Reminder: We’re still clearing out the Washed Shop.
While the shop has been absolutely ravaged over the last two days because of our half-off sale, there’s still some great stuff available — including the Varsity Fajitas shirts in grey and navy. If we sell out of the fajita shirts, I will personally promise that we will use the proceeds to eat fajitas at someone’s birthday party (upgrading the steak to carbon meat, obviously).
Circling Back on Circling Back This Week
It was loosely dubbed Grandex Week at Washed Media this week, but that’s solely because we had two recurring guests join us: Micah and Dan.
Living Más with Producer Micah
Producer Micah joins Will and Dave to discuss Dave's 40th birthday weekend, Randy's Washed HR email, equipment financing, Biden bowing out for Kamala to run, Taco Bell's early retirement community, and two (2) wellness trends that deal with salmon sperm and beer baths.
Brazilian Cocaine Sharks & Podcast Bros (ft. Dan Regester)
Dan Regester (also known as Jack Hammer) joins us in Dillon's place this Wednesday. We talk Brazilian sharks testing positive for cocaine, the most bro-y of podcast bros, meme tattoos, Randy is heading to JAPAN, This Weekend in Fun, and a lotttttt more.
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