I walk past this fancy-pants butcher every afternoon on the way to the station, you know, the kind where a little steak looks pretty amazing but costs about $90 a gram.Some afternoons they fire up a fry pan and cook some different stuff, chop it up small, and pop some toothpicks in. "Free" samples. I walk past, and the comforting aromas call me in, like I am a hapless sailor being sung to shipwreck by a beautiful siren.
So singeth the rib-eye:
Eat meeeeee!
Eat meeeeee!
I am freeeeeeee!
I tried for a long time to resist this call, because for a neurotic person like me, nothing is free. I take a 'free' sample, the next minute I'm being gently persuaded to part with a weeks wage for a gourmet sausage.
I have no backbone. If I take something you offer as a free gift, I will feel eternally indebted to you. You have the upper hand, and I am putty in your cruel grasp.
But the other day I succumbed. It was a Friday. I was reckless. Hungry and delirious. I grabbed a toothpick, and was paralysed with joy as the high-grade morsel melted in my mouth. I shouldn't have lingered, but I couldn't move.
The man behind the fry pan then assaulted me with reasons to buy a whole steak. He was very persuasive, and I felt myself weakening. Then, flashing before my eyes appeared the faces of my two children.
'We want an education, Daddy! We need a roof over our heads! Don't buy the steak, Daddy, don't.... for us!'
I dropped the toothpick. It twirled in the air, slow-motion, dropping to the bin.
I turned, bolted, and made for the train station barricades. I was away. But only just.
Next time I may not be so lucky.
4 comments:
Phew!
I have no problem taking frrebies. I they want to give me stuff for nothing then more fool them. That said, I do remember once in my teens listening to s record at one of the old listening booths they used to have and buying it out of embarassment even though I didn't even like it.
That was meant to be freebies not frrebies !!
This is what I've missed!
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