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.
@RandomGuy893443@christ621ml Loudly wrong.
Szeto - Highly favored the fire nation leaving the rest of the world to fend for themselves while collecting power.
Yangchen - Sided with humans so much the spirits began to suffer and corrupt.
Kuruk - Kinda a bum but also cleaned up Yangchen’s mess
Roku - Sozen.
I cannot express the extent to which this company needs to be aggressively dismantled, its assets seized and its data storage destroyed completely. It is a deeply evil organisation run by deeply evil people.
Yet they are still deepening their access in the NHS! Get them out.
🚨BREAKING: Taylor Zakhar Perez and Connor Storrie to star in Netflix’s TV adaptation of THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller, a retelling of the Greek tragedy of Achilles and his relationship with his best friend Patroclus.
Matthew López set to direct.
It’s time to lock in this winter. Gym twice a week for 45 min. Sleep until 10am out of bed at noon. Put off your laundry as long as humanly possible. Drink every day