Guero Please: Taco Truck Subtly Tries To Steer White Guy From Red Salsa

PORTLAND, OR—A subtly merciful act of generosity went unappreciated by its intended beneficiary today when taco truck Tacqueria Fresca tried to get a white guy to avoid the red salsa, for his own good. 

“I can always tell when a white guy has something to prove,” explained Miguel Bernal, who was manning the order window at the time. “It’s not every gringo, but sometimes a guy comes to the counter and he just has the glint in his eye. Usually, it just means he’s going to throw in a por favor or demand jalapeños with a real extra emphasis on the Ñ. Most of the time, you can just nod and get on with it. But sometimes, the white guy is going to go all in and go for the salsa roja.”

“This dude was one of the bad ones,” Bernal added, gazing into the distance. “I tried implying we only had verde, I tried to ‘forget’ to add the red salsa in his bag, I tried speaking to him super fast in Spanish to distract him. Some people just don’t want help.”

Local Southeast Portland resident Juan Aguilar, who was reportedly standing behind the white guy in line, agreed. 

“When you see a guy wearing a Patagonia vest going for the red stuff, you know it’s just not going to go well,” Aguilar said. “Granted, there are some white dudes who make their whole identity that they always go for the hottest possible sauce. They know about Scoville units and shit like that. This dude... did not seem like one of those dudes.”

Jonathan Palmer, a food critic for Portland Life, was all too familiar with this kind of sad case. 

“Many white people have a deep-seated need to go for the hottest salsa in a taqueria,” Palmer explained. “It’s kind of a cultural inferiority complex that just harms everyone involved. They don’t get to enjoy their food, the taqueria has to worry about their Yelp ratings, and well, nobody wants the uh, bathroom experience that’s coming up. Whether he knows it or not, this white guy is just part of a constant cycle of white ego that’s been happening for hundreds of years.”

As of press time, when the white guy arrived home, he immediately put the red salsa in his refrigerator, where it will go unopened for 3-4 months before being thrown away.