Cinco De Mayo: What is it and Where Did it Come From?

¡Hola, mis amigos! Yo soy muy excitan sobre el Cinco de Mayo en que una camarera me servirá un banquete Mexicano.

Literal translation: Hello, my friends! I am very excited about the Fifth of May when a waitress will serve me a Mexican feast.

My translation: Hey dudes! My big chorizo is very excited because I'm going to go party my burrito off this Cinco de Mayo and find me a senorita with a nice set of tostadas who'll let me grab her on the tamale and give me a peek at her sweet, little taco.

Yes, there is nothing I enjoy more than making sexual euphemisms out of Mexican cuisine. Another thing that really gets my fajitas sizzling is celebrating while heavily intoxicated, and there is no better day for downing a gallon of margaritas, eating a few pounds of beans, beef, rice, and cheese wrapped in tortillas, and chasing frightened senoritas than Cinco de Mayo.

By now, you are no doubt wondering what the hell Cinco de Mayo is. You may be asking questions like, "What the hell is Cinco de Mayo?" or "This Cinco de Mayo; what the hell is it?" or "What in the world are you referring to when you say, 'a nice set of tostadas' and 'her sweet, little taco'?"

Well my friend, you have come to the right place because I know probably as much about Cinco de Mayo as anyone else who likes to make up crap and publish it as if he were an expert. So as a service to you, here are answers to a few questions you may have about my favorite holiday with the word "cinco" in it. Just think of this as my little way of using a few Spanish words in an article and letting people think I know a second language.

What does Cinco de Mayo mean?

"Cinco" is Spanish for the number "five," "de" is Spanish for the word "of," and "Mayo" is short for "mayonnaise." Thus, "five of mayonnaise." For some reason, 19^th century Mexicans felt a nonsensical phrase about a condiment was worthy of celebration and chose May 5^th as the day to raise hell and carry on each year. We Americans have never really understood what the big deal is about "five of mayonnaise," but we look for any excuse to gorge ourselves on massive quantities of food, drink ourselves silly, and have filthy sex with people whose last names end with the letter "z," so we are more than happy to join our fellow North Americans in crazy celebration.

At last year's Cinco de Mayo party, a beautiful, young Latina waitress named Lupe kept smiling and flirting and calling me "Gringo." What does Gringo mean?

Gringo is Spanish for "Dorky American guy wearing a sombrero and drinking shots of tequila who thinks telling me I look like Salma Hayek will make me want to jump his bones and so I smile and flirt with him because I know if I do that he will give me a ridiculously large tip even though never, ever in a million years will he get into my smokin' hot, little panties."

What's up with the little worm that's always at the bottom of a tequila bottle?

Worm? There's a worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle? By the time I polish off a bottle of tequila I am so blotto there could be Chihuahua turds at the bottom and I wouldn't know it. Thanks for the heads up!

So what's the deal with guacamole? Mexicans really eat that crap?

Yep. Drink enough margaritas and even repulsive, green, gooey stuff starts to look good to you, which, incidentally, is how I lost my virginity.

Montezuma's Revenge-that's just diarrhea, right?

Just diarrhea? If you call your intestines turning into a putrid, liquidy, bubbling slime and exploding in a fire ball out of your tail pipe with enough force to send the space shuttle into orbit nothing more than a bad case of the runs, then yes, it is "just diarrhea." Anyone who has experienced Montezuma's Revenge, however, will tell you it makes diarrhea feel like a tiny, wet fart.

I'm celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Tijuana this year. Any suggestions on what I can do to make it really memorable?

Drink the water. You'll love it!