Free Yogurt in the Commonwealth

In my October 26 posting I made an observation about how giving out free samples was an American phenomenon that you don't see very often in other places. And when attempted - unintended consequences can result.

One morning while we were living in London we encountered a yogurt giveaway on the street corner. There were big barrels of iced down yogurt and someone handed one to Kim. The label looked like someone had printed them off in their garage. She smiled and got excited about the free breakfast. I've never once seen her eat yogurt. Not for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner - but she was smiling from ear to ear about it.

I made her throw it away.

"Dear, those people could be terrorists giving away virus-contaminated yogurt and these Brits who are rushing to grab some will be ground zero for a global outbreak". Some of the people around us were ripping the lids off and slurping down the stuff with flimsy plastic spoons right there on the street.

I had forgotten about that story until this morning...

We took the train to work (too hot to walk across the bridge with my computer). As we rode the escalator up to street level - I noticed a problem in front of us near the top. Instead of people filing off the escalator and flowing out into the street - there was a clog. And the escalator was continuing at normal speed and propelling us all into a growing crowd of people who were getting mashed together in an awkward smash up. We were able to avoid the core of the clog and skirt the crowd with some degree of dignity. As we passed by - I noticed the same familiar barrels of iced down yogurt and a collage of arms and hands clawing to get free jumbo-sized samples and flimsy plastic spoons. I laughed and reminded Kim that she isn't allowed to take any.

When I arrived at the office I went to the break room for coffee. I ran into Angelo - one of our Australian Associates. He had just finished off one jumbo container of yogurt - and was opening his second. He had Four in total. He was proud of his haul and it looked to me like he planned to eat all four in one sitting.

If I come down with a mysterious virus - seek out Angelo as the prime carrier.

I realized that this may be material for the blog - so I went back a few minutes later with my iPhone to take a picture of Angelo and his yogurt. But he had already finished and I would have to dig the empties out of the rubbish bin.