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 America, a stranger will rename you in a single breath, and you are simply expected to come when called. I went to eat at a busy restaurant. A young man at the front asked for my name, to mark my place in line. I gave it the weight it has carried for eight hundred years. "Nobunaga." He smiled, nodded, and wrote it down with great confidence. Then he read it back to me, to be sure he had honored it correctly. "Perfect. Banana, party of one." Banana. He had heard my name, held it a moment, and returned to me something rounder and more cheerful. To refuse the name a host gives is to refuse his welcome. I bowed. I was Banana now. Then he handed me a small black disc, said it would "light up and buzz" when my table was ready, and turned to the next guest as though he had not just placed a living thing in my hands. I held it in both palms, the way one holds a small sleeping beast that may wake. I found a place to stand. I waited, ready. It woke. It screamed. It flashed red. It leapt and shook in my hands like a captured spirit demanding release. A lesser man would have dropped it. I did not. I gripped it, steady, looked into its blinking lights, and told it, in a low voice, that its time had come. Then I carried it back to the host with both hands, the way one returns a hawk to its master. He took it without looking and shouted across the entire room. "BANANA! Party of one, your table's ready!" A hundred strangers turned. I rose. I crossed that floor as Banana, spine straight, chin level, a man answering to his name. A child pointed at me. I gave the child a small bow. He had recognized me. All through the meal they kept me. "How's it tasting, Banana?" "More water, Banana?" The check, when it came, said Banana, and thanked me for visiting. By the end the whole staff knew me. They waved as I left. "Night, Banana!" So tell me honestly. For eight hundred years my clan answered to one name. Tonight I answered to a fruit, calmed a screaming relic in my bare hands, and ate among people who were glad I came. When the little disc lights up, is the table truly mine, or am I only keeping it warm for the next Banana? Because I have already decided to return on Friday, and to ask, very humbly, for the same disc.

Man if you’re going to be mean and least get it right. I smoked crack. I would never have wasted coke on snorting it.

pausing on my account and showing this to my autistic discord kitten (groomed)

Miss that @ every day

Welcome back @youngsamurai444 🥂

A farmer dies in April 2026. His son inherits the farm. The farm has been in the family since 1847. The farm consists of: 300 acres of grazing pasture, a farmhouse built in 1892, a barn, a milking parlour, two tractors of varying ages, a Land Rover that runs about 70% of the time, and a herd of 180 Hereford-cross cattle. On paper, the farm is worth approximately £3.2 million. This is because land near him has been bought recently by a London hedge fund looking for carbon credits, which has dragged the comparable value of every field within forty miles upward to a number nobody local can justify. In cash, the farm produces a profit of about £28,000 a year in a good year. In a bad year it loses money. The son also works as a fencing contractor three days a week to keep the operation viable. The inheritance tax bill on a £3.2 million estate, even at the reduced 20% rate, comes to approximately £140,000 after the increased threshold is applied. The son does not have £140,000. The son has never had £140,000. The son has £4,200 in his current account and an overdraft. The son sells 60 acres to a developer to pay the tax. The developer puts solar panels on the 60 acres. The remaining herd cannot be sustained on the reduced land. The herd is sold. The barn becomes a holiday let. A different family eats Brazilian beef this Christmas without knowing why the price went up. The Treasury collects £140,000. The land never produces British food again.

Talking to my 82 year old mom about all the news of Trump. She interrupted me and said, “Hoss, the only way I can stomach to watch that pre-death bloated Mango Mussolini on the news is with my resting bitch face applied and a glass of wine at the ready!” Holy Wisdom Shit Balls

most inspirational thing i’ve ever read

Moving across the country in a month. Had to lock in this whole process was a bitch and a half 🥂

You can't stop a baby from crying. You can't reason with a baby. It's not like a misbehaving child. Their ears hurt from the pressure change, and they don't understand why. They are in a new environment and may be over stimulated as well. You can't take the child away like you could at a restaurant. There is really not much you can do about it. I promise you, the annoyance you're experiencing is nothing compared to how the parent feels, knowing angry childless people are furious at them. Be an adult and fly with noise canceling headphones or ear plugs.

I was wrong...cd project red...I kneel

Got pussy monster. It's unfortunately peak

i'm happy that one in a while, intense autism still pays off.