NOVEMBER 4th - How Alcohol Paved the Way for Taco Bell



On this day in 1879, James Jacob Ritty patented the very first cash register in an attempt to keep his bartenders from making off with his cash. Seems appropriate that an invention so crucial to commerce evolved out of an establishment that sold alcohol. As I have mentioned before, alcohol is responsible for the greatest inventions in mankind. When the wheel was invented in 4000 BC Mesopotamia, it was because some dude got drunk on wine and decided to bang off the edges of a stone table. Even simple things. The woman who invented shoelaces, for instance. Completely sloshed and suddenly realized a piece of string would keep her shoes together. Dean Martin’s best songs, Paul Newman’s best movies, and Ernest Hemingway’s best novels--all created with a little pickle-juice in the veins, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down. And the cash register is pretty vital to our way of life. I’m not putting down cashiers, and have actually been one myself, but do you really want all the money going through their hands and brains with no record of calculation? Fast food restaurants couldn’t exist without cash registers, and while no fast food might be good for the obesity and diabetes epidemic we have in this country, it would also mean no late night Taco Bell. No Doritos Locos Tacos. No Chalupas or Cheesy Gordita Crunches or other made-up confections that have Latin sounding names and are utterly delicious at 2am. And while there are many things by which I can abide, no Taco Bell is one of the things by which I cannot. So thank you James Jacob Ritty for outsmarting your stealing bartenders and allowing me to enjoy a 79 cent soft taco when the belly begins a rumbling. Because that’s the American Dream right there.

This day has been Marked.

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