@carlitsfl@Jake3Roy BOS conducts charters at the gate sometimes. Just bc the flight will depart from a gate doesn’t mean the team will use the terminal like people will for a scheduled flight. Additionally, Delta flight numbers that are 8XXX are typically sports charters or repositioning flights…
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.
After his electric performance in the World Baseball Classic (see what I did there?), it’s an honor to officially induct Ondřej Satoria as our first honorary member in the WBC wing of the Hall of Pretty Good.
Satoria, an electrical engineer as well as a pretty good ballplayer, captured the hearts of baseball fans all over the world in 2023 after striking out Shohei Ohtani. He then returned to the World Baseball Classic this year and threw 4.2 shutout innings against Japan (Shohei was reportedly too scared to face him a second time).
While we are not doing our typical voting style for this special honor, the HoPG’s Instagram broadcast channel voted 928 to 10 in favor of bestowing Ondřej Satoria with this special induction.
Ondřej Satoria represents us all, a hardworking man who plays the beautiful game of baseball with passion and respect. It is truly an honor to induct him as our very first honorary member.
It doesn’t get any more pretty good than that. 🇨🇿