The Tyranny of Freebies

We hate standing in lines. A litany of apps have cropped up to help us skirt the waiting game. And yet, sometimes, we queue up in snaking, slow-moving huddles in order to score freebies. It doesn’t really make sense. Why are we willing to shuffle in place and watch the clock tick as long as the result is something we don’t have to be pay for?

Take, for instance, National Donut Day. (Today,
June 5.) The quirky festivity was allegedly initiated by the Salvation Army in the late 1930s to honor the women who ferried the deep-fried pastries to U.S. soldiers on French battlefields during WWI. These days, the holiday—and, like The Atlantic’s Megan Garber, I use that term loosely—is an excuse for both mom-and-pop shops and large national chains to peddle free treats.