On Monday I helped one of my friends fix a cgi execution problem with an Apache server. This sort of thing happens a lot, and afterwards I was greeted with a common side effect – a promise of a free meal, this time for me AND my wife.

I’ve been promised a great many lunches and dinners in return for fixing problems or solving tough customer support cases. Every once in a while someone actually delivers on the promise, which is very nice, but I rarely expect anyone to actually hold to the offer.

It occurred to me later that if I were to actually go around collecting all the free meals I’ve been promised over the years, I could probably eat for an entire month for free. Now if I had only written something down every time an offer was made …