It's a big conspiracy.

The sounds of maracas and skinny mexicans with big sumbreros singing "Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye..." fill the air as the sun is filtered into the building through thousands of pieces of stain glass. My only thoughts are, "You gotta love Paradiso."

Walking into our favorite mexican ristorante is a great experience. Although, I must say that if walking into heaven is like a restaurant with spanish music and a cheap, tacky fountain in the middle, I will be extremely disappointed. That said, I will say that their food is FANtasic. I can't complain one bit. Mexico must be the land filled with free tortilla chips and rivers of flowing salsa, because really... have you EVER been to a mexican restaurant that doesn't give you free chips and salsa? I haven't. Their Chicken Chimmi Changa is what I normally order... you get this large floured tortilla shell filled with shredded chicken and sauce and then you put a large mound of sour cream with lettuce and tomatoes and there is spanish rice and refried beans on the side and... well, let me just say that life is extremely good...

That is until... you are about to walk out the door.

What a difference an hour makes after you have stuffed yourself with all of this food. You're gut hurts from all the chips and salsa and the oversized taco filled with shredded chicken floating around in your belly. It is only then that you realize that you have fallen victim to a conspiracy by the Mexican Government to either make all Americans fat or make all Americans unable to function as a result of all of us concentrating on keeping our sphincter muscles sqeezed tightly shut... All this so they can come in and take over the country by force. When will this happen you ask? In my attempt to figure this out, I believe they are waiting for the most opportunistic time. A time when all Americans are sitting on the can because what we just ate is running through our system like liquid draino. Oh the pain of a bloated stomach and the pain of fiery liquids shooting out the other end... It is enough to make any American waive the white flag of surrender.

As one who has fallen victim to this conspiracy, I can only say...

"Rindo."

that and...

"Odio el paradíso."