free stuff... sometimes you love it, sometimes you don't

oh free stuff...

for the most part, i'm a huge supporter of free stuff. i mean heck, if you're going to go out of your way to allow me to have something for free, i'm usually going to jump at that opportunity. it helps that i'm a perpetual university student who works at camp during the summer so that on top of owing thousands of dollars to a big giant university i make close to diddly squat. generally, anything that costs nothing is a sweet deal. however, i'm beginning to rethink this paradigm. don't get me wrong, in the last week i have enjoyed the benefits of a free agenda/student plann and some coupons to staples (though nothing i can get with them is actually free), but i've also come across some free things that i just don't need.

take yesterday, for example. there i am, walking across the north plaza of the sub by the good ol' grassy knoll, when i'm handed a free information pamphlet. now i'm not really one for pamphlets, but it was free and i was distracted by the wonderful cup of starbucks in my other hand, so i accepted the pamphlet and kept on walking. much to my dismay, i hadn't earned myself any more coupons to staples or a free meal, but a piece of propaganda about how chickens are praying for me. Yes, that's right friends, CHICKENS ARE PRAYING FOR ME. Now you can imagine my reaction. Who hands out pamphlets that says chickens are praying for me? First off, I don't believe I've ever come across a chicken with the intellectual capacity to string together a coherent sentence, let alone pray for me. When I read the rest of the pamphlet I realized that I was being coerced into becoming a vegetarian or a vegan by a number of cartoon animals telling me that they loved me, they didn't want to be eaten, and that they were praying for me. Oh sweet mercy. Not that I don't love vegetarians, I think they're great people, but please... this is just poop! I really should scan some of the images from the pamphlet and put them on my blog - they were that ridiculous.

Needless to say, I need to pay far more attention to the free stuff I collect. The next time I'm offered a pamphlet that tells me the chickens are praying I will run, no, SPRINT, in the opposite direction. But I'd watch out... you never know where those praying chickens will end up next.