Enchilada Ed

17

Without a prom date, Ed found himself back at El Gringo's.

As he took the order of a stubbly man clad in a yellowed wife-beater, Ed caught himself gazing at the cacti by the front windows. He felt like grabbing the closest one and gouging out his eyeballs on its spines. That would be sure to make the local news. Teen bleeds out after run-in with cactus. As Ed bused tables and washed dishes, he ruminated over several creative methods of suicide: death by solicited rabid opossum bite, death by wisdom tooth self-extraction, death by amateur electric rewiring.

Around the three-o-clock dead time, as Ed vacantly swept the front room floor, Piruz turned off the neon open sign and clapped very loudly.

"Ed!" he shouted. "Put down the broom!"

"Gah," Ed shivered in his shoes. "Why are you yelling?"

"To get your attention," Piruz snatched the broom from Ed. "We're filming the commercial today."

"Right now?" Ed scanned the room for a hidden camera.

"No time like the present. Farbod has a camcorder and some placards in the back," Piruz leaned the broom against the insignificant wall and walked behind the front counter, "and you'll need to put on this," he pulled a chili pepper costume from under the cash register. "I compared your measurements with the online sizing chart. It should fit."

Piruz tossed the costume to Ed. Well, Ed thought, there's no getting out of it now.

"It looks, uh," Ed examined the bright red spandex through its clear plastic bag, "kind of small?"

"It's polyester and spandex. It should stretch," Piruz took out a green felt stem-shaped object from below the counter, "don't forget the hat."

***

Ed stood in front of the bathroom mirror, halfway to tears.

The costume did stretch. It was, after all, polyester and spandex. A spandex leotard, with bulky polyester shoulder pads and a tail-like protuberance sewn on to give it a pepper-like shape. The spandex clung to the muscles of Ed's chest and abdomen; the pads made his shoulders look broader than they really were, and, as he soon discovered, the foam-polyester protuberance jutted straight out from between his legs. Underneath the chili pepper suit, Ed wore tights the exact same shade of green as the stem hat.

"Ed!" Piruz called from the hallway, "We don't have all day!"

"Uh, okay," Ed shouted back, "But I'm not sure this is what you were going for."

Ed very reluctantly returned to El Gringo's front room. He watched as both Piruz's and Farbod's eyes dropped to his groin.

"What the hell?" Farbod ran his fingers through his brown hair.

"It looks different than it did on the website, I must admit," Piruz pulled his iPhone out of one of his khaki's pockets, "see here, it's supposed to be more of a tunic-"

"Let me see that," Farbod wrestled the phone from his father, "Dad, you idiot, you ordered the wrong one!"

"Impossible!" Piruz insisted, "I ordered the Enthusiastic Chili Pepper costume, I'll show you the email."

"No, you ordered the Extra Spicy one, see?" Farbod pointed to something on the phone screen.

"Aye Khuda," Piruz muttered. "Well, it's not so bad?"

"It's ridiculous!" Farbod growled. "You have to order a new one."

"We can't," Piruz pursed his lips. "Cinco de Mayo is Saturday. We don't have time."