In America I ordered a milkshake and the young man turned it upside down over my head.
I did not move. A samurai does not flinch, even when the ice cream is above him and gravity is the law.
Nothing fell.
The cup hung there, upside down, defying the sky, and the boy held it over me with the calm of a man who has done this ten thousand times and buried his fear long ago.
This is the Blizzard. This is Dairy Queen.
If it falls, they told me, you get it free.
I understood at once. This was not dessert. This was an ordeal.
The boy was not showing off. He was swearing an oath, with his own arm, that he had made the thing thick enough to hang against the earth, and he was betting the price of it on his honor.
The flip is not a trick.
It is a vow.
In my land a smith proved his blade by cutting.
Here a boy of seventeen proves his by turning it over a stranger's head and looking him in the eye while the whole line waits to see if he lied.
He did not lie.
He set it upright, handed it to me, and said "there you go, man," then turned to the next customer as if he had not just gambled his good name across a counter.
I tipped him everything in my pocket.
He tried to give it back. He said it was just a Blizzard.
I told him it was not just a Blizzard.
I could not explain the rest in English, and there was a line, and he was busy.
So I bowed instead.
He said, "You too, man."
That answered nothing I had said.
It answered everything I had felt.
@PrincessSpinda@chazmuco Apart from what everyone else is saying, I have to add that most people *do* find the story horrifying. It’s heavily rooted in body horror and cosmic horror.
@scaasibelak@PlisskenPatriot You must be very daft and naive to believe someone in a bad situation must deserve it. Not everyone lives with a privileged safety net or family to rely on in times of hardship.
@confirmedterfs@OffHandedBarrel@MoronMining Can you not read? Original post references ‘not getting sex’ for people not having it so he’s exclusively talking about the SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED one which is HSV-2, AND STD.
@eyzmin@ReedAtlanticist@altvaulter@Leogonebrazy420 You’re acting as if laissez faire is some transcendental term unlike capitalism when they were terms coined in the same time period to describe related economic philosophies. Laissez faire was born to describe a form of capitalism and any source will tell you that.
@eyzmin@ReedAtlanticist@altvaulter@Leogonebrazy420 You’re conflating free trade with laissez-faire. Laissez faire is a comprehensive economic philosophy from the 18th century that touched on several facets of economics in line with capitalism, not just tariffs. They’re not synonymous but laissez faire is a form of capitalism.