Dinner and a Booby

We run a tight ship around here at Casa de Death. No cussin. No runnin' with scissors. No mixing metaphors. Also, we're dead set against public nudity. This is not true of everyone in our neighborhood.

There's a fantastic Mexican/Guatemalan restaurant a couple of blocks away. We love it. Eat there all the time. In fact, we don't even call it by its actual name (because we'd get sued). We call it by the name of the exuberant owner. We call it Juan's. Some families order Chinese. We say, let's eat at Juan's. And so there we were the other night, peacefully crunching through some lomo de Res con nopalitos, chicken flautas, and steak quesadillas when I casually glance across the street and notice a light come on in a second story window. Oh, how nice, I think. I didn't know anyone lived over those nondescript businesses. Someone lives there. That's where they live. There.


I'm bringing a forkful of lomo and nopalitas (steak and baby cactus) to my mouth when the person who lives there steps into view and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt they not only live there, they also poop there.

Most bathroom windows are made from frosted or pebbled glass. Not this one. This one was carved from pure gas plasma high definition glass. As I stared, agog, through the remarkably clear possibly magnifying unfrosted pane, an elderly woman removed her robe and sat on what I could only assume was a pissoir and opened what I could only assume was a magazine (Exhibitionist Monthly?) I watched in horror, steak and baby cactus dangling before my gaping mouth, as she thrust out her chin the tiniest little bit and, I assume, strained, ever so slightly.

[My Attorney]: What?
Me: Man, these tacos are scrumptious.
[My Attorney]: (not fooled for a minute) What.
My son: Dad? Why do you look scared?
Me: How's your chicken oh my god!

The horror show across the street has gotten measurably worse. I will never be able to wipe it from my memory. As hard as I try now to wipe it from my mind, I cannot. I can't wipe that image clear. It remains there where I can't wipe it. Wipe. Wipe. Wipe.

Following my stricken countenance, [My Attoryney] and innocent child glance behind them and spit their flautas across the table. A flurry of Oh My Gods are whispered through fingers as we clamp our hands across our faces to wipe the horror from our horror wiped faces. Wipe.

Now we're trying to finish our meal without calling attention to the free show happening across the street. [My Attorney] is facing mostly away and the boy child, so innocent, so pure, has his back to the window. Well, his chair has its back to the window. My kid is practicing yoga so he can eat while accidentally glancing out the window into the window.

Our waiter stops by, follows our glance across the street into the red light district, and pours cold water all over the guacamole. He tries to clean up but he keeps staring at our new friend who is now standing and putting on a shower cap. She does some sort of . . . examination? We're not sure. All we know is the waiter poured water in the guac, the flautas, our empty margarita glasses, and onto the floor.

We figured she'd have to finish her ablutions and turn off the light but she did not. She continued to disappear and reappear, nekkid as all get out, as we finished our desert, politely refused to have our empty salsa cups refilled with coffee, and paid our check. She was doing some kind of pit maintenance as we drove away.

Two weeks later, we're at a neighborhood party and mention this, purely out of an altruistic effort to perhaps communicate to this woman that her glass, she is not frosted. We mention it because a person at the party works in the building beneath the glaze de l'boudoir and we felt we had to tell her. Turns out the woman is not entirely shy and may not give a rats ass if people can see her flaunting her flab over their flautas.

I guess we'll have to start requesting a table that faces the wall or perhaps only eat there in the daytime.

Alternate titles for this post:

"Rear Window"
"Room with a View"