Bam!

I’ve always been one of those “cut to the chase” type of people. I enjoy a story, don’t get me wrong, but I almost always get antsy midway and demand to know the end. “Okay, okay, so what happened?”

I don’t read much, but when I do, I skim, skip, flip to the back. Give me a spreadsheet and down I go to the bottom line. I’m like that in all of life. Can’t help it.

It is because of that personal idiosyncrasy that I find my walks these days particularly tasteful. I live downtown and walk everywhere, and these days it always feels like a festival, a party, Fiesta. And when I’m downtown and I see a bit of Fiesta there, lying in the cracks of the sidewalk – and there are billions of bits of Fiesta still there – I lick my finger, bend down, and stab the colorful little bit. Then I put it right onto my tongue and swallow. Not always, but sometimes I hear Chef Emeril in the back of my mind yelling “Bam!”

So there you have it – the bottom line. Cut to the chase. End of story. You see, otherwise that color little bit of Fiesta just lays there until the morning guy with the sprayer and the rubber boots squirts the little bit into the storm drain. And there it lays with tons of other little bits. Out of sight, colorful as ever.

Then in a few months, the rains come and away the little bit and his friends go on that thrilling ride down Mission Creek and into the sea. You can almost hear the mariachi on the Cabrillo bridge during the first rain of the year with all of that Fiesta passing underneath.

Then out at sea, the first little fish that comes along eats the little bit and swims away from shore. A bigger fish eats that little guy and so it goes. The little bit is in the food chain and partying like an out-of-towner. Beautiful.

Then I go down to the fish market to buy local. After all, I’m an environmentalist. “Anything taste like a party?” I ask the clerk. “Everything” he replies. I take my catch home, give it a good grilling, and then I eat my local fish and a little bit of Fiesta. Yum.

So now you know. If you are a bottom-line guy like me and you’re downtown. Go ahead, have a bit of Fiesta. Cut to the chase.