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This Week in Taco Bell: Lousy ingrate shoots Taco Bell because he didn't get sour cream

This Week in Taco Bell is For the Win’s weekly roundup of Taco Bell news and the internet’s foremost source of aggregated Taco Bell content.

Here’s a terrifying and disheartening story from the Associated Press about a Milwaukee-area man who got way, way, way too mad over an ordering mix up at Taco Bell:

Milwaukee police say a customer upset with his order at a Taco Bell shot into the restaurant’s drive-thru window.

Taco Bell management says that after leaving with his order, the man was upset to discover the employees forgot to add sour cream. He called the restaurant and the manager told him to come back the next day for a free meal because they were closed.

Authorities say the man returned a short time later, about 12:20 a.m. Monday, and shot at the bullet-proof window and an employee’s car. No one was hurt. Police are looking for the man.

This is illegal, irrational and unacceptable. Taco Bell does so much for you, guy. And yeah, sometimes screwed-up orders can be pretty frustrating, and the prospect of sour cream fired from a caulking gun onto a delicious pile of seasoned beef can test the limits of our sanity.

But you absolutely should not shoot Taco Bell for any reason whatsoever, least of all something as trifling as a mistake in burrito construction. It happens, bro. And while I recognize and appreciate that this man is presumably a very passionate Taco Bell enthusiast — the type I hope will read This Week in Taco Bell on the regular — This Week in Taco Bell is not for anyone so silly and ungracious as to ever resort to violence at Taco Bell.

Please, sir, if you are out there, click away now. You should not be permitted to read these beautiful Taco Bell news roundups. Also, turn yourself in: You belong in prison or, more likely, an institution, because you are dangerous and psychotic. They were willing to give you free Taco Bell but instead you shot Taco Bell! Stop shooting Taco Bell.

For crying out loud, there’s got to be a convenience store nearby that sells sour cream. It’s not Plan A, obviously, but it should take way less effort to go get some sour cream and add it to your Taco Bell item manually than to go home, get a gun, and drive back to Taco Bell to shoot Taco Bell, which will never, ever result in sour cream on your taco. They probably don’t even have sour cream for taco day at the state penitentiary. You’re risking your freedom to ever eat Taco Bell again.

Taco Bell is a celebration, people. Don’t shoot Taco Bell. Really can’t stress that enough.

It’s not all bad for England right now

(PHOTO: AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

(PHOTO: AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

England’s having a pretty rough go of it lately, with the economy in flux after the whole Brexit thing and also the country’s sports fans saddened by its embarrassing loss to Iceland in whatever soccer thing is happening right now. But, hey, there’s a sliver of sunshine: Cleethorpes is getting England’s first-ever Taco Bell drive-thru.

I don’t understand enough about international finance to say a single darn thing about what’s going to happen in the U.K. now that it’s leaving the European Union, and I don’t know enough about soccer to say why it’s such a big, sad deal that England lost in soccer. But man, do I know Taco Bell, and I promise you this, England: You’re going to love the drive-thru.

It’s magical! You can now access incredible Taco Bell food without even having to leave you car. A few tips for the uninitiated:

1) If you’re planning to eat while driving, stick to items wrapped in soft tortillas. We’re talking burritos, MexiMelts, soft tacos, Crunchwraps Supreme, and Cheesy Gorditas Crunch, among other things. Avoid crunchy tacos and especially nachos, because you will get weird, amazing, orange Taco Bell grease all over your pants trousers.

2) If you live more than 5-10 minutes away from Taco Bell, just suck it up, get out of your car, and eat in the dining room. Trust me on this one: Taco Bell is best enjoyed freshly prepared. Most items don’t keep terribly well, and while the novelty of bringing Taco Bell home without ever leaving your car is certainly fun, it’s just not worth a subpar Taco Bell experience.

3) When exiting the Taco Bell drive-thru, make sure to drive on the left-hand side of the road. You’re probably used to this, but I’m not, and it’s one thing I know for certain about life in England. I’ve never been there.

4) When you’re done using the Taco Bell drive-thru, check out baseball. It’s awesome. It’s kind of like cricket, except it takes less time (though it still takes a lot of time), sixes are called “homers,” and the spin-bowlers and speed-bowlers tend to be one and the same. Cricket is cool, too, though. No disrespect.

A smart, impassioned defense of hard-shell tacos

A taco. (PHOTO: TacoBell.com)

A taco. (PHOTO: TacoBell.com)

Louisa Chu of the Chicago Tribune defends crunchy tacos from the needling criticism that they are inauthentic:

Hard-shell tacos should need no defense from those who denounce the golden fried vessels classically filled with seasoned ground beef, yellow cheddar cheese, white sour cream, green iceberg lettuce and diced red tomato. Like colors of a flag, together they signify ingenuity and innocence….

Keeping in mind cultural identity and concerns of cultural appropriation, let us clarify that these tacos are as much of a food evolution as hot dogs and pizza.

The problem that taco intolerants have may be the execution and not the concept. Here they’ll cite Taco Bell, whose founder, Glen Bell, popularized crispy-shell tacos.

Here’s my thing: Basically all our best foods represent the product of some sort of cultural exchange. And while sometimes those cultural exchanges are mostly messy and unfortunate and tragic, the new foods they leave behind typically rule: See the banh mi, for example.

While it’s true that the type of tacos served at Taco Bell are hardly the same as traditional Mexican tacos, a) Taco Bell does not purport to being authentically Mexican food, only Mexican-inspired American fast food and b) who the hell cares, really? It’s authentically food, and ultimately all that matters is if you think it tastes good.

Things change, people meet and trade and exchange ideas, and we move forward. If you were actually dedicated to only eating foods authentic to a single culture and not in any way appropriated from another, you’re going to have an extremely bland diet and you might also get scurvy.

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