The Day Chipotle Added Brown Rice

I love Chipotle. Anyone who knows me also knows that I love Chipotle. I love the way Chipotle looks. I love the way Chipotle smells. I especially love the way Chipotle tastes when that warm burrito just melts in your mouth. Best of all, I love the how Chipotle gives you extra cheese with no extra charge! Mind bottling! I know! I even love the word “Chipotle” and how it just rolls off the tongue. With ease I can proclaim to others my favorite fast food restaurant, “Chipotle is the b b b b best of the b b b best” of course Chipotle will always come out with ease, regardless of my stuttering.

Ordering food is the best part of Chipotle. Now if you don’t know, for people who stutter, ordering food is a nightmare within a nightmare (if that makes any sense). On a weekly basis, I usually order a soda that I never drink just because it comes with the meal. Telling the clerk that I just want water rather than a coke is just out of the question. I would rather eat my meal and be thirsty than change the whole order and go through the fight of asking for water. I will, however, fight with all my strength to ask for no mayo.

So when I first ordered at Chipotle, I loved it! All the pointing I could do was just unbelievable! And the one-word answers were just like heaven on earth!

“What would you like today sir?” Burrito!

“What kind of beans would you like?” Pinto!

“What kind of meat?” Steak!

“Salsa?” No Salsa, I’ll take cheese. Wait a minute…extra cheese!

“Would that be it?” Yup!

There you have it, the best of the best! As simple as can be! I can order a whole meal with just saying a couple of words, words that I could actually say fluently. Then they added brown rice. Now they ask me what kind of rice I would like and of course “white” or “brown” are words I can barely say. The word “wh wh wh wh wh wh white” just leaves me breathless, gasping for more air and “b b b b b b b b b b brown” blocks my air flow leaving me completely silent, awkwardly contorting my face.

Even though ordering food at Chipotle has become more difficult, I still love it. There’s a sense of pride and victory I feel when I fight through my stutter and order the meal I want. Sometimes it leaves me never wanting to go back but there are those rare moments where I feel stronger and glad that I was able to get through it.

If People Only Knew

I didn’t think it could get more difficult, but it has and it did. It’s hard to know how bad my stuttering will be in any given day. I never know which conversations will go well or which ones will leave me never wanting to talk again. 

I am reminded of some tough times I had when I was child. You know when you stutter, there’s specific situations that you just never forget. My family and I would go to church a lot and this one Sunday we went to a church with people I didn’t know at all. You know what that means, I would have to introduce myself and tell people my name. The only problem was I couldn’t, “Hello, my name is aaaahhhh, aaaahhhhh, aaaahhhh” anxiously taking another deep breath hoping they wouldn’t notice, “aaaahhhh, aaaahhhh, aaaahhhh”, finally I shamefully look over to my older brother, hoping he’ll say my name for me. “This is my brother Andrew” as my brother would say. I felt so relieved yet so deeply vulnerable when I had to rely on someone else to tell others who I was. 

Sometimes I can’t find the words to express the feelings that come when I can’t even say my name, not just my name but when one word won’t even come out. The thought of not being able to say one word just keeps me up all night. This happens consistently, week in and week out. Just this past saturday, I was at a party talking with a couple of people and got stuck on this stupid “b” word that would not come out. It was like squeezing the last toothpaste out of a tube, you annoyingly keep squeezing the tube hoping something would come out, squeezing till it’s bone dry. Well, there I was blocking on this “b”, squeezing out every breath I had till my lungs were bone dry, then I would go at it again. These people were not my closest friends either, I had no clue how they were going to respond. All along this “b” word would not come out, my face and lips were all contorted, I was looking out into space cause God forbid that I actually look them in the eye the whole time. It took me about 4 different tries to get the word out. 4 different tries! That means starting over 4 different times, taking 4 different breathes, contorting my face 4 different times in 4 different ways. Right then and there, I was finished. I was done. No more talking, no more caring.

If people only knew the scars that are left behind in each conversation I have. I jump into a conversation never knowing what will happen. How bad will I stutter? How long will my blocks be? Will the listener actually listen or shrug it off as nothing?