So, I’m flying to Portland for a few days of vacation — there’s a brand-new nephew to be adored, and all — and while biding time before the flight, I stop at an airport Taco Bell. I’ve pretty much abandoned Taco Bell as a staple of dining-out routine; the ready availability of Chipotle burritos has spoiled me when it comes to Mexican fast food. But once in awhile, a stop at Taco Bell seems like an amusing nostalgic indulgence, you know, like watching “I Love the ’80s” on VH1.

The thing is, this is an “express” Taco Bell with a limited menu. So they don’t have my favorite item — the double-decker taco. (This was a great invention, incidentally. Back in the day, I used to get a couple of soft tacos and a couple of bean burritos — sans onions, of course — and eat them alternately. I grew up eating homemade soft tacos often, but the Taco Bell version didn’t include beans, so I had to get the bean burritos, too. I always got soft tacos, even though I liked the taste of crunchy tacos — I hated how the hard shells crumbled apart when you bit into them. So then someone had the bright idea of coating a soft tortilla with beans and wrapping it over a crunchy taco. Brilliant. All my favorite Taco Bell flavors wrapped up in one. It hardly mattered that the ingredients were all so substandard.)

Now, I can understand the need to keep the menu limited, to keep the inventory small. But there’s no reason to toss an item off the menu if you still have all the ingredients to make it! They sold soft & hard tacos, they sold bean burritos. But they wouldn’t slap beans on a soft tortilla and wrap it around a crunchy taco. Why? I just don’t understand.