All of a sudden, the future doesn't look so bleak (amuse me here for a minute).
For unto a present landscape of spoon-size microplastics haunting our headspace, unmoored ice shelves freewheeling their way across a surging sea, and corpo allies drooling with thoughts of torturing free thinkers in government gulags, rises one bright hope: Taco-dispensing ATMs.
The only problem? The only one we've ever heard of just opened over 1,400 miles away, in North Texas.
Dallas Fingerprint brings the news that Fort Worth now has an "Automated Taco Machine," courtesy of local Funky Lime Hospitality, which owns a bunch of nearby restaurants and bars.
The ATM sits next to a smoke shop and has a touchscreen where you place your order for a smoked chicken taco, al pastor taco, or "beef fajita taco." Again, it's Texas.
You get to pick between corn or flour for your tortilla, as well as from a list of toppings like cheese, cilantro, cebolla, chiles, and different salsas. It takes your credit card, then it spits out a taco from a drawer at the bottom, presumably linked to an actual taco-making human on the other side. You can also get elotes slathered in Taki and Flaming Hot Cheetos crumbs.
The taco kinda looks like shit, from what we see. But that's aside from the point. Laika had to die on the first launch, years before Neil Armstrong could walk on the moon.
More outrageous than the weak-sauce taco is the sheer fact that Texas has a taco ATM and L.A. doesn't. Apparently, we've invested all our contactless snack technology budget in Sprinkles cupcake ATMs all these years without this idea ever coming to fruition. ¡Qué verguenza!
The truth, however, is that we really don't need this taco technology outside of our more tourist-friendly pedestrian zones.
In an actual taco city like ours, blessed with trucks and stands on all our major corners, with tortillas made on the spot, fresh salsa bars, and meats sizzled before your eyes, Texas can take their taco ATMs and crap tacos and shove 'em.
We're just mad we didn't think of it first. Here's to the evolution of the taco, tiny android arms assembling them be damned.
