Taco Bell Gave Me a Cellphone

Last week, I became one of 1,000 people to receive a Taco Bell Breakfast Phone, a disposable cellphone that promised multiple opportunities to win Tex-Mex swag and free trips. The phones were part of the company's aggressive campaign to emotionally prepare the world for the national unveiling of Taco Bell’s breakfast menu, which launched Thursday to much fanfare. As the great reveal drew nigh, my burner phone rang off the hook. And not just with calls from Taco Bell.

It all started when I tweeted in praise of Taco Bell earlier this month, which I frequently do and which usually causes me to lose followers. The company had released a branded Vine video in which a waffle pops out of a toaster and magically becomes a Waffle Taco—the syrup-drenched pièce de résistance of the new Taco Bell breakfast menu. It was beautiful; I tweeted that Alfonso Cuarón should eat his heart out. Seconds later, something exhilarating and entirely unprecedented happened. I received acknowledgement from the brand’s Twitter account in the form of a direct message: “Want to be a part of something awesome with Taco Bell?”

Well, of course I did. Who wouldn’t? (Don’t answer that.) I called the listed number and relinquished every piece of personal information short of my Social Security number and blood type to a disinterested but polite person on the other end who in turn revealed the contours of my breakfast phone-to-be. Nine days later, UPS arrived with a package from Taco Bell HQ in Irvine, Calif. “OPEN ME NOW,” a sticker implored. “IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT.” My heart fluttered.

Inside the padded envelope, which had been sent Next Day Air—that costly emblem of postal urgency—was a Samsung T404G (c. 2010), an adorable normcore

They did not have Taco Bells in my area when I was growing up during the 1970s. The first time I ever heard of Taco Bell was in the lyrics of a Supertramp song from the summer of 1979.

The song was called "Gone Hollywood" and it was the opening track on the blockbuster album "Breakfast in America."

Lyrics go something like this:

So many creeps in Hollywood
I'm in this dumb hotel
by the Taco Bell
without a hope in hell
I can't believe that I'm still around

So that was my first exposure to Taco Bell. I spent many warm muggy nights that summer listening to that album (I had it on vinyl!) as a 16-year-old kid getting ready to start my senior year in high school and having not yet been to California, it seemed like a heartless place of broken dreams, run-down hotels and these "taco bells" of which I then knew not.

I first went to eat in a Taco Bell sometime in the early 1980s, when I was in the Marine Corps stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA. It was actually my first exposure to "Mexican" food of any kind. Up to that point I had never had a taco before and didn't even know how to pronounce words like enchilada and burrito (which I originally thought was a donkey but later learned that was a burro).

I didn't have too much culture growing up. I came from a strict "meat and potatos" kind of family. Once in a great while, we'd order takeout from some chinese joint down the street and that was super exotic to us. Egg rolls, fried rice, grilled meat on sticks. For us, that was really venturing outside the culinary comfort zone.

However, being in Southern California at last, I was slowly and gradually introduced to genuine, spicy Mexican food and Taco Bell food began to seem bland in comparison. Especially when I started drinking margaritas with 100% agave tequila and Cointreau. They don't serve margaritas at the Taco Bell but if they did, they would probably serve a nasty concoction of cheap tequila and sugary lime-flavored water that would come out of a machine.

Back in the day, Philly had closed national parks because of the fed budget snafu. A lot of local media were reporting that Philadelphians could not see their Liberty Bell, etc. ...

A large spread was done in the paper announcing that Taco Bell was coming to rescue and have purchased the Liberty Bell and would finance the park so that it never closes. The only requirement that the name be officially changed to 'the Taco Liberty Bell'

I believe the date of publication was April 1st

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