The Observer, March 21, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 21
Worst Case Scenario: Free stuff rocks ... somtimes
Nobody loves free stuff more than I do. I can sense it. I know which booths at the job fair give away the best swag, and I am quite adept at wrangling it from them. I outfit my kitchen with plastic souvenir cups from all manner of organizations. My house is filled with furniture purloined from the tree lawns of wealthy folks who were throwing it out. I live for the festival of free that is Springfest. But while I greedily snap up these small treasures at every available opportunity, I still recognize that there is a problem with free stuff. When it's not worth it, there's no getting your money back.
There is nothing worse than false advertising for free stuff. Just look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The kids in Willy Wonka's factory were thrilled to enter the mysterious candy maker's shop. They thought they would get to try all the new candy, see the inner workings of the chocolate factory, and live to tell the tale. They even had to work for their free trip – skillfully forcing their parents to purchase cases and cases of chocolate just to get a chance at finding the golden admission ticket. But then, when they got inside, they found a misanthropic chamber of terrors. Every time one of them tried to get the slightest free sample of candy, they got sucked into some sort of candy thresher, blown up, incinerated, or shrunk. All in pursuit of a little free candy. It makes me depressed just thinking about it.
I had a remarkably similar experience this past weekend. In this case, we were supposed to be going to a chocolate bunny factory. Instead we went to the Chocolate Kingdom. Something about the words "chocolate" and "kingdom" got me really excited. I wanted to go and impress the eccentric candy maker so that maybe, just maybe, he would retire and leave the keys to the kingdom in my grubby little hands. But my dear friends, life is just not like that. The chocolate kingdom was a small room at the back of a chocolate shop. It was filled with big carved chocolate figurines that smelled like a cross between melted plastic and borax laundry detergent. I had driven to Pennsylvania to see it. I had been a tool.
In life, we'll all eventually run into our own personal Chocolate Kingdom. We'll go out of our way to experience something we think will be amazing, and end up thinking, "Well, there's four hours I can never get back." But even when we waste a lot of time and energy on something that doesn't turn out the way we wanted it to, things aren't as bleak as they seem. Later in life, I'll find the Chocolate Kingdom adventure very humorous, and it will make for a great anecdote to tell friends and family alike. I've actually already started to look back on it fondly; who would have thought that carved chocolate would smell like that?
When I really think about it, I suppose that the best free swag we get as college students is the opportunity to explore, make mistakes, face disappointment, and go on living, all the wiser for our experiences. But that doesn't mean I'll stop looking for other free stuff, too. Springfest is fast approaching!
