Underrated life advice: Become generous with your assumptions. Assume they were tired, not rude. Overwhelmed, not careless. Preoccupied, not distant. This doesn’t mean tolerate disrespect. It means stop turning every small moment into a personal attack. Grace makes life lighter.
Thank you @NASA for the coolest day ever. One week ago, we were eating Chili’s in Chattanooga, and today we’re talking to the ISS. This is the American dream.
Thanks for letting three random World Cup tourists from Germany live it for a few days. USA rocks.🇺🇸🚀
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.
@PardonMyMeme San Antonio resident here: You guys walked by me at Houston airport. Wanted to say hello but didn’t want to bother you. Most Texans leave you alone, even when you’re in Knicks gear.
Safe travels to San Antonio!
Watching Europeans happily explore our country for their World Cup trip is the most wholesome thing I’ve seen on this app since we made friends with the Japanese.
I love Americans. We were about to walk an hour to the stadium in the rain to save on an Uber, and the receptionist at the hotel we were parked in front of decided to drive us there.🙏
Just a thought: there are more than 18.6 million registered voters in Texas. In the March 3 primary, only about 1/4 of them voted. The good news is the 3/4 who did not vote can cast a ballot in the May 26th runoff. Texas is worth fighting for! Vote!