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 * I Believe In Free Samples**

I believe in free samples. Growing up as a boy, I would often accompany my father whenever he would go to the neighborhood Safeway or Costco. To many, the grocery store represents a weekly chore of endless decisions and flipping through trashy magazines while you wait to check out; but to me, a trip to the grocery store has always been my own little slice of nirvana. My dad and I would stroll the aisles with smells of fresh baked bread filling our noses, trying to figure out meals for the next week or so, and every once in a great while we would turn our shopping cart around those mysterious corners, where an elderly old woman would be waiting to smile and kindly offer us a free sample of the latest and greatest of new products. Being a kid chock-full of imagination, to me this was as close as I would ever get to digging up buried treasure. It didn’t matter what the free sample was, I would gobble it down and bask in the prize I had received.

To me, free samples embody the American spirit in its purest form. Living in a society of liberty and freedom, our greatest asset we the people possess is our freedom to choose. We are a land of ideas and a land of hope that we may turn these ideas into products that people enjoy and depend on everyday within their own lives. Everyday small business owners and entrepreneurs get out of bed with the sole purpose of creating and perfecting these ideas, so that they too may leave a little mark of themselves on the world. That is what is so wonderful about the free sample, people are so anxious to get their idea out there that they are willing to part with the fruits of their labor to give it to you…free of charge. From there, it is our decision whether we want to bring this idea into the landscape of our lives, or simply let it die out like so many before it. Some may merely see this as a simple marketing gimmick, but I see it more as a bold expression of determination.

I can remember a hot summer day years ago under the Florida sun. My family and I came across a modest fruit stand in the middle of nowhere. As good as a fresh peach sounded, we were skeptical to eat this fruit that had been roasting in the sun for who knows how long. As we glanced at the selection, we finally decided not to buy anything and started to leave. As we began to depart, the man told us to wait and handed each of us a peach with a smile not unlike the woman at the grocery store years earlier. As I bit into my peach, I could feel its cool juices running down the side of my arm. It was perhaps the most delicious piece of fruit I had ever eaten, and we walked right back to the stand and bought a dozen of those wonderful peaches. It’s a tough world out there, and it is important we hold on to our hope and faith. As we send the products of our labor out into the world, we can only anxiously sit back and hope that we are able to catch that wandering glance of curiosity, so that someone new may also sample our idea and maybe, just maybe, decide to make it a part of their own lives.

Exceptional essay! When did Safeway stop giving out free samples? ;) -Kassidy