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.
@WesternLensman Lmao… taxpayers give the government 5.5 TRILLION PER YEAR…5 times that amount and what did that get us? 40 trillion in debt. The government is the worst entity to give money to.
@Amy_Siskind He made 4,400 of his employees millionaires over night by giving them $10,000 worth of stock upon hire before the company went public. Thats something.
@JoelKatz@em_Lazzy People forget the government is the absolute worst with money.. 40 trillion in debt…not to mention Gavin Newsom already tried to end homelessness just in California by pumping 20Billion over 5 years into it.. California has more homeless people than ever before.