The “something for nothing syndrome” has America in its grips.
People love getting something for nothing. It doesn’t matter how old or how young we are, the allure of something for free is irresistible.
Take our high school football games, for instance. Whenever our team scores a touchdown, the cheerleaders throw miniature footballs into the crowd.
The masses go crazy. We all stand up and scream because we want a little football. We don’t need a little football, but they’re free and so we want one. If we happen to wind up with one of the little treasures, it comes home with us and goes into the pile of other free things we’ll never use.
Yet we yell louder for the footballs than we do for the team when they scored. At the last game I saw a woman just after she had caught one. You’d have thought she had won a gold medal at the Olympics. She was holding it high in the air in a sign of victory, her face aglow, giddy with delight.
I’ve seen men push little children out of the way in their quest to grab one. I’ve heard stories about teens grabbing them from strangers. I’ve heard of people getting injured trying to hurdle over neighbors and three rows of seats in an effort to snatch one.
All for this little thing that will probably get thrown away in the next spring cleaning.
We went to an Astros game last summer, and the mascot came around during the breaks and used a slingshot to hurl different stuff into the crowd. Same thing … only they had policemen on hand to make sure nobody got killed during the riot that followed.
Who can explain why I feel so disappointed when I don’t catch anything, yet the stuff they’re tossing out is stuff I’d never pay money for? It’s the something-for-nothing syndrome.
I went to College Night at the high school, and the table with the most kids around it had cool giveaway stuff. One table was giving away erasers in the shape of a brain, so we had to go to that table so we could get a free brain.
Happy Meals and all their counterparts at other restaurants give a child a “free” toy with their food. At one point when I had a bunch of little children at home, I had enough free toys to open my own restaurant. On Halloween, I put them all in a huge basket and gave little trick-or-treaters the choice between these and candy. Almost all of them picked the toys.
It was good for them, because they got something else for free. It was good for me, because I didn’t have to feel guilty about throwing them all away. Their moms all gave me dirty looks.
How many times have you gone to a banquet and there was some sort of themed centerpiece in the middle of the table? One I went to had this cute thing with a branding iron, barbed wire, and cactus. I say “cute” because it matched the theme of the evening, but surely wouldn’t go well in most homes, unless of course, you live in a barbecue restaurant.
They announced that one person at each table had a dot underneath his or her plate, and that lucky person would get to take the centerpiece home. There was a flurry of activity, moans of disappointment from the losers, and squeals of excitement from the winners. The something-for-nothing syndrome had struck again.
At our last football game, the cheerleaders ran out of footballs and started throwing wads of something else into the crowd. We couldn’t even tell what they were. Still, we leapt high, reached over children’s heads, and snatched these little packages because even if it was junk, it was still something. Turns out it was candy, probably left over from Halloween.
I sure hope they have more footballs by the next game. I’d love to catch another one of the little buggers. Add it to my collection.
