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.
New Yorkers, join us in the first ever Mayor’s Municipal Madness: a competition of city fixes where everyone wins.
City workers fix thousands of tiny annoyances every year, from broken basketball rims to bike path bumps. This year, we’re highlighting 16 of those fixes.
From the exacerbating eight to the frustrating four, every item in each round will be repaired…but you’ll be voting on which fix will be done by me on day 100 of our admin.
Round one of voting starts right now: https://t.co/8iGV460exI
Renee was one of my students years ago. I held her baby. She was kind and talented, a working class mom who put herself through school despite circumstances that would’ve crumpled the pathetic rich boy politicians who sadistically abetted her murder
God damn them all
Oh look, bibi is “caught” bragging to the media about blowing up busses full of children. Again. This happens so often it’s almost as if he wants you to know that nobody will stop him.
We’re all locked in one big humiliation ritual.
🫡✝️🇺🇸
*for educational purposes only
Colombia President Petro: "A clan of pedophiles wants to destroy our democracy. To keep Epstein's list from coming out, they send warships to kill fishermen and threaten our neighbor with invasion for their oil. They want to turn the region into another Lybia, full of slaves."
They draft laws to execute Palestinian hostages and get them approved by their parliament before the eyes of the whole world, and no one even condemns them..
Psychopathic Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir distributes sweets after Israeli Knesset approves first reading of new bill legalising the execution of Palestinian hostages..