USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
Cody Campbell and Texas Tech desperately want a seat at the big boys table.
They are doing everything possible this week to get permanently banished. https://t.co/Rlhh44Jj4c
@AriWasserman One thing I think you need to take a look at when talking about bama is returning stars. Yea other teams spent more in the portal but bama had to pay to retain stars like Zabien Brown, Dijon Lee, Hubbard Sabb Yohnze Pierre Ryan Coleman-Williams Brooks Carroll
@cdotharrison They’re building a team like this, then they’re still going to ask Mahomes to bail them out with his arm when they abandon the run while getting him zero help
@Colt_Hoosier@ClintRLamb There basically isn’t a soul on earth that agrees with him besides Indiana fans. He’s getting shredded by every person that isn’t an Indiana fan
@Colt_Hoosier@ClintRLamb He won awards because he got basically zero future impact NFL players to play like the best defense in college football which is very impressive
@Colt_Hoosier@ClintRLamb Yea I mean that’s pretty spot on. Anyone with a high school level of football knowledge could see that is the case. They’re not running like a defense where they’re sending exotic pressures or dropping rushers and confusing QBs. Just lined up and whooped people