Romeo Caesar

A Waffle House at three in the morning. I ordered hash browns. The waitress, Charlene, turned toward the kitchen and shouted. "Scattered, smothered, covered!" I rose from my stool. These were battle commands. Shouted across a room, fast, in code, the way a captain calls a line into position. Something was happening. I prepared myself. "Who is under attack?" I asked. Charlene turned back. "Huh? Oh. That's just your hash browns, baby." I sat back down slowly. "...The potatoes have their own commands?" "Mhm. Scattered means on the grill. Smothered's onions. Covered's cheese." "And there are more?" She counted them off without looking at a menu. "Chunked is ham. Diced is tomato. Peppered's jalapeños. Capped's mushrooms. Topped's chili. Country's sausage gravy." I was silent for a moment. Nine words. Nine fates, for one potato. In my homeland, a man earns a name through a lifetime of deeds. Here, a hash brown can earn nine in a single night. I had badly underestimated this country. "I want all of them," I said. "Every word. The potato has earned them." "...You want it all the way?" "All the way. To give it fewer would be an insult." Charlene shouted the whole thing back into the kitchen, the full litany, and the cook answered without turning around, and I stood again and bowed to him, sergeant to sergeant. He did not see it. It did not matter. I knew. It came buried. Onions, cheese, ham, tomato, peppers, mushrooms, chili, gravy. You could barely find the potato underneath, which seemed correct, because by then the potato was no longer a side dish. It was a decorated soldier. I ate the whole thing with a fork in both fists. It was hot and filthy and magnificent. I have eaten in palaces. I have never eaten anything that was honored this thoroughly. So tell me, America. You can shout the same potato into nine different lives. Who wrote this language, and where can a foreigner learn it? And the cook who answers in code at three in the morning. Is that a kitchen, or a war room?

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving. Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free. I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these." "They just come with the table, man." They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat. I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared. "Did we…?" "Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless." Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude." Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy. Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

I went to In-N-Out and ordered a cheeseburger. The cashier, a calm young woman named Destiny, asked me a question I did not expect. "You want that Animal Style?" I paused. I did not know what this meant. But a samurai does not admit he does not know. So I answered with weight. "...Animal Style." "Cool. So that's mustard-grilled, extra spread, grilled onions, pickles. Yeah?" I understood now. This was a sacred permission. For one meal, I was being told to put down my manners at the door. To eat the way a beast eats, without shame. I had waited my whole life for someone to give me this order. "Yes," I said. "I will become the animal." Destiny did not blink. "...Okay. You want your fries Animal Style too?" I stopped. Even the potatoes? "The potatoes also become animals?" "I mean, they get cheese and sauce and grilled onions, so..." "Then yes. Let the potatoes abandon their restraint as well." "...Got it." She was the calmest woman I have ever met. "3x3, 4x4, or just the one?" I did not know these numbers, but I knew a challenge when I heard one. "How many must I face?" "It's, like, how many patties you want." "How many is the most honorable?" "...Four is a lot." "Then four. A warrior does not ask for fewer." She wrote it down without argument. A 4x4, Animal Style, with animal fries. She warned me once, kindly. "That's gonna be huge." I told her I was counting on it. It arrived. It was a tower. Cheese and sauce ran down my hands the moment I lifted it. There was no clean way to eat it. There was no dignified way. That was the entire point. I ate it like a beast. Both hands, no honor, grilled onion on my chin, and I have to be honest with you, it was the best thing I have ever put in my mouth. For thirty years I have kept my manners at every table in the world. They handed me a burger and told me to be an animal, and I have never felt so free. So tell me, America. The whole country knows the secret menu. What else are you hiding in plain sight? And "Animal Style." Was I eating the animal, or finally becoming one?

Let’s see what Messi has in store for us today! This should be an easy win for Argentina so I’m anticipating 3-0