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.
In the very pro-choice DIRTY DANCING, the "nearly dying" is b/c of the illegal abortion provider who's not a doctor. It shows what happens when abortion is illegal like in the film's era. Baby's dad—an MD—saves Penny compassionately. The film clearly spells out she can have kids.
WATCH: “Ummmm… Rep. John Rose’s wife was 14 when he first met her. He was 40.”
True.👇🏽(stay tuned for when we asked him about this)
Now the Republican is running for governor. 😬 Maybe he’s not the best “protect our children” messenger?
Thanks to @LenValyrian’s question about Black boys’ happiness, I had a great conversation with my son about not only what makes him happy, but how I can continue to foster it
There is a guy on TikTok who talks about the way Black Americans will take a food and make it so clearly ours. The examples he used were spaghetti and tacos, but I also mentioned tamales.
Parents are so hung up on not being toxic parents that they basically categorized discipline as abuse!
They forget kids still need to have/learn boundaries & know what crosses the line of being expressive vs just plain rudeness