Taco Bell plays a big part in my drive thru dependency. I don’t really think outside the bun, though: I always order three hard shell tacos.

 That’s as much because I love hard shell tacos as it is that I feel ridiculous ordering anything else. Here’s a tip, Taco Bell: before naming your menu items, get a focus group of Minnesotans together and have them pronounce the names under consideration. “Chalupa” and “Gordita” might sound edgy when pronounced by certain people under certain circumstances, but pronounced by us folk in the North Land, they just sound like a bunch of people “ooooing” and “ahhhhing” over fireworks.

 So anyway on my most recent trip to Taco Bell I ordered the usual and aforementioned three hard shell tacos. After the guy behind the drive thru menu established that I wanted neither pop nor hot sauce, he informed me of the amount I owed: $33.84.

 “How much?” I asked. “$33.84” came the voice. Then: “Oh, wait, did you order 33 tacos?”

 No, sir, I did not order 33 tacos. Has anyone ever ordered $33.84 worth of food from the Taco Bell drive thru, let alone $33.84 worth of tacos?

That bit of unpleasantness out of the way, I proceeded to the pay window. Having spent the last of my cash stocking up on the back-to-school pudding sale at Wal-Mart, I handed the guy my check card.

“On the card?” he asked.

 No, I said, I don’t want it on the card. I just wanted to haul the entire upper portion of my body out of my car window to show you my new Platinum Visa. I forced myself to remember that I go to the drive thru to raise my cholesterol and not my blood pressure and calmly said, “Yes.”

 I got home with two soft shell tacos. You win some and you loose some in the high-stakes world of drive thrus.