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.
“Liz Lemon, this is Dan Houseman.”
“It’s Danhausen.”
“Whatever his name is, I gave him 5 dollars to curse Martin Lawrence in 1996 and I’ve been on top ever since”
Well, David Hasselhoff is a huge rock star in Germany, where his latest album sold five million copies this week.
Which once again proves my theory:
Germans love David Hasselhoff.
“Your hat says ‘Trump was wrong about everything’ — it should say YOU are wrong about everything.”
“That’s adorable. Burn! Pam Bondi wrote that for you?”
@DonHelbig@interludej That’s my ole friend @TheMarkening and he’s done AMAZING WORK giving Jungle Jim’s a solid footing in the social media/content creator world!
Him and his team are NEXT LEVEL!
24 years old.
Fully paid off Costco hotdog.
It's not "parents money".
It's not luck.
It's consistency.
It's discipline.
I grind EVERYDAY to live this lifestyle.