Well @blackdragonroll I’m at the @TempoBasketball game in Vancouver having a deep discussion with my 21 year old daughter that ended with “if you didn’t want them dating you wouldn’t give the turtle that hair cut”
Bobby high key got dogwalked, but from his perspective he's on borrowed time anyway, Larry T on way out, and from my perspective the earth is on fire and we're all getting older, whatever, fuck it
Some guy broke into my house and set up residence in the study room. He says his grandparents used to live in this house and now he won't leave.
My family and I tried to kick him out but he got very violent. He brings in his friends and they help beat us up if we ever try to make him leave.
They keep saying I hate the guy because of his religion. I don't even care about his religion, I just don't like sharing my house with some random outsider who broke in here out of nowhere and took my stuff.
"The poor guy just wants one room to call his own," his friends say in his defense. "You and your family have all the surrounding rooms in the house, and yet you have a problem with the guy having sovereignty over ONE room? That's kind of bigoted and evil."
He keeps throwing stuff at me and my family if we get too close to his door, saying we make him feel afraid. His friends say it's understandable because his room is surrounded by enemies who hate him just for existing, but we don't hate him for existing, we hate him because he forcibly inserted himself into our home and keeps throwing stuff at us.
And what's weird is whenever I explain my situation to normal people they completely understand where I'm coming from and agree the guy is being a dick, but if I talk to the police or the local paper they always side with the guy. Almost everyone in town hates this guy now because of how he's been acting, but everyone in power does everything they can to protect him. It's like there's a total disconnect between the authorities and the will of the public on this particular issue.
It's having a nastier and nastier effect on the community at large all across town. The police have been showing up to arrest anyone who says they think the guy's being an asshole. The paper keeps printing these obnoxious lies telling everyone that me and my family are the real criminals and the guy is actually sweet and awesome. It's really unfair.
Things have been so tense and hostile ever since this guy showed up. I honestly think it would be better if he'd never moved in here at all, but whenever I say that his friends claim I'm saying the guy should be exterminated and try to get me in trouble.
It's a real mess, man.
That guy sucks.
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.