It's 3[:30]AM I Must Loony

I thought the crowd at the 24-hour taco place by my house at 2am after the bars let out was really weird… until I met the 3:30am crowd. Anyone scoring a burrito at that hour has been up to no good.

My friends and I were there, too, so admittedly we deserved to be categorized similarly. At least we had the good sense not to try to intermingle with the fellow riffraff, but all the other patrons were intent to chat us up anyway.

First, an older gentleman interrupted a couple of my female friends' conversation about their respective hairlines to give his input. He was a "comedian" but never really said anything funny. When my friend finally tried to excuse herself from a conversation the guy wouldn't take the hint needed to end, she told the slightly balding guy, "Okay, good luck with your hairline!"

Then there was a straight male ginger Latino fashion student (who knew?!) who was celebrating his 21st birthday. He claimed he had $4,700 on him that his father gave him to celebrate and kept offering to buy us stuff and take us places. He told us he had paid his friend to be a DD and that he was on his way to Vegas after eating and we could join him. Behind him, his friend shook his head no to indicate that was not going to happen. The ladies also declined to give him their phone numbers, despite his persistence. I'm not really sure whether he had all that money on him either, but he did wind up buying us an horchata.

Meanwhile, some woman a few feet away started screaming and slapping a guy after he told her he was leaving her at the taco place because he couldn't afford the gas to drive her home. She could have left before with Tito if he had mentioned that fact earlier!

Both the 21-year-old and the comedian were asking where we all lived, and one of my friends offered up the fact that I lived "right over there" and pointed. I leapt into action: "Yeah, but not right there… way way back. Like a few miles in that direction." Sorry, but we don't give my address to shady drunk people.

Speaking of shady drunk people, the creepiest dude of all never even talked to us. He was a young guy by himself carrying a 12-pack of Tecate in his arm. As he methodically made his way through his beers, he would flash a big smile and just wave at us every couple minutes or so. At first it seemed friendly, then it seemed like a condescending joke, and then it seemed like we might get murdered. At some point, the smiling and waving between strangers needs to stop, or people are going to start to think the worst. It's a shame, too, because it might have been nice to be friends with a guy unashamed enough to drink a 12-pack on a public street corner.

No more enchiladas at 3:30am.