A warm basket appeared before me, unbidden. The woman who set it down smiled and walked away before I could ask who had sent it, or why. “Here you go, hon.” In Japan, nothing arrives before it is earned. A meal begins when the bargain is struck. So warm bread, free, BEFORE the contract? Clearly a test of restraint. And I do not fail tests. I ate one roll. Slowly. With dignity. She refilled the basket. I ate two more, to honor the refill. She refilled it again. I began to understand my situation. This was not hospitality. This was a siege, and I was inside it. By the fourth basket I leaned in and whispered, “Who is paying for this bread?” “Nobody, hon. It just comes.” It just comes. Bread, in this country, is weather. I want the record to show that I fought well. Eleven rolls. When my true meal finally arrived, I looked at it like a stranger. The waitress saw my face. “...you filled up on bread, didn’t you.” I had filled up on bread. Eight hundred years of military discipline in my blood, and I fell at the first basket. Like a child. But hear me. A man does not ask the basket to be empty. He only becomes harder to fill. Bread sent without a name must be eaten completely. That is the oldest law I know. She boxed my untouched dinner and said, “You’ll get ’em next time.” I will not. We both knew it as she said it. So tell me honestly, America: in your entire history, has anyone ever defeated the basket? I return Thursday. Honor demands a rematch, and I have a strategy now: one roll, no more. I will eat the rolls. All of us know I will eat the rolls.