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.
Here's a stat that's about to blow your mind.
In Ring Wrestling Time: 1 hour, 26 minutes total across 7 matches
Ad time: APPROXIMATELY 1 hour and 14 minutes.
12 LESS MINUTES OF ADS THAN WRESTLING.
TKO are genuinely ruining EVERYTHING.
#WrestleMania
They could have said there is a new martial arts movie coming out and this person is in it. That literally could have been the trailer and I woulda been all in………. You see this person. Get ready for a good time……..
“If you have a problem. If no one else can help. And if you can find them, maybe you can hire The A-Team.”
THE A-TEAM premiered on this day in 1983.
What a time to grow up!
You might find a whisper of THE A-TEAM in the pages of THE FOURTH OPTION.