Fake Generosity

If I were to list my pet peeves, I'd have a little peeve zoo. The list is honestly endless--to some people (my brother) quite entertaining: poorly assembled sandwiches, water in plastic gloves, open closet doors, willful ignorance...I have a hard time keeping track of them myself. But high on that list is fake generosity. If you're not going to give it with meaning, just skip the gesture.

When I was in San Francisco for Nike, there was an Expo as there is at all big marathon/triathlon events. The sponsors have booths and give away free things. In 2008, Kaiser had free massages (bless them many, many times), JetBlue had manicure tables set up, BearNaked had free granola...It was really a wonderful treat. This year, due to the economy there were fewer sponsors and the gifts were more modest. Still, all of the participants loved the festivities and appreciated the goodies. One of the sponsors was new beauty product company that was handing out shampoo, conditioner, face masks etc. I asked to try the face mask, in case I was possessed with a sudden bout of girliness that required me to put things on my face. The girliness didn't hit me until yesterday while I was multi-tasking. After all, what could make a woman wielding cleaning agents more attractive than a carrot face mask? I was so excited! I opened the tub of goop and looked a petrified cylinder. There was no way it could be applied to skin without scrubbing layers off. I read the label, looking for instructions to soak it or otherwise revive it to its moisturizing nature when I saw the expiration date on the bottom: 9/09. It expired in SEPTEMBER! The Expo was in late October! They were handing out expired skin products. Is that not rude?! Why bother? I'm going to think you're a bunch of cheapskates trying to look good while dumping your crap on people.

Ahem. In conclusion, I do not like people who try to score generosity points while being exceptionally cheap. Sadly, my beauty regiment is so marred by this event that it could be YEARS before I think of exfoliating again.