Give Us, Us Free!!

The Free Sample....

Just because something is offered without a price, doesn't mean it's necessary for you to accept said offer.

It's not even like they're giving you the fresh chicken teriyaki. You're getting the neck and gizzards at the bottom of the pan that got sluiced through the grate into the coagulated lard that has been collecting there since the Sankarra Teriyaki was a Nathan's Hot Dogs.

As soon as those trays of free samples get unloaded onto the cart at Trader Joe's, you'd think they were offering tickets on the last shuttle off Krypton before its red sun explodes. Grown men and women pushing ahead of others to get a dixie cup-sized taste of a microwaveable veggie lasagna.

And any other day of the week they HATE VEGGIE LASAGNA.

So why do they even bother? Because free tastes good? Good enough to turn rational customers into the Lord of the Flies with shopping carts? But instead of a conch shell we get half a mouthful of pasta shells & cheese?

Which makes me Piggy I guess, my glasses thrown off my head by the rush of customers fighting their way to the front of the line before the last sample is gone. It's only a matter of time before they push me off the side of a cliff in order to get their hands on the spork in my hand.

My favorites are the "unsuspecting customers" who just happen to be browsing nearby and "Oh...oh my, well, I mean, sure, I GUESS I could try this sample. Normally I wouldn't even bother, but, well, I wouldn't want any to go to WASTE."

You're not fooling anyone. I saw you standing at 3:00 from the cart for the last five minutes, examining the same loaf of bread as if Jesus's image was baked into it--

--your eyeballs breaking over its horizon as you 'clandestinely' scoped out your target--the emergence from the microwave...of the turkey meatloaf. And yes, please, wave your kids over to try, because I know Little Jimmy has had a craving for a bite-sized portion of haricots verts since soccer practice let out.

We're a country that believes in two things: Something for nothing; No one has the right to tell me I can't be obese. To people who hold this creed the free sample is a red, white and blue firework being shot from a Revolutionary War-era cannon while a socialist runs underneath it's glow being chased by a pack of wild jackals.

"Give me Diabetes, or give me death, or...both, I guess."