Another Paradox of Thrift

This morning, I went to a Skinny Cow Perfect Cup event.  What this is, is a rather inexplicable promotional event where you go, get free Skinny Cow ice cream, up to two glasses of wine or lemonade, get a free bra fitting and bra and a goodie bag. Basically it sounds too good to be true.  It costs nothing, and you get free ice cream.

What I found though, was that it was absolute chaos, I had to hang around for over an hour, and you don't actually get a free bra, but rather a coupon for a free bra.  Still, it's my day off, I went with a friend and we had a lovely brunch beforehand.

Here's what baffles me though, yes, I expected it to be a little less of a wait, but it was still lots of free stuff.  It wasn't even a situation where you are kept waiting so you can be talked into buying things, it was just a "hang out, have some snacks and a drink while you listen to pop music" kind of affair.  Still, I heard nothing but complaining from the women waiting.  After an hour, I was ready to leave, and I did; other women were yelling at staff and bitching to each other about how long it was taking.  If you don't want to wait, I say just leave, why ruin someone else's day?

Why do people seem to complain more when they're given free things?  I see this at the library all the time as well--this incredible sense of entitlement.  Come to the library, and everything is free. You get four hours of free internet use per day, though if it's busy, you may have to wait; you get helpful librarians; you can check out five CDs, five DVDs, and 100 books at one time--in short, it's the best deal in town.  But that's just not good enough for so many people.

People demand more time on the computers, people expect you to have every book ever and get angry if you don't, people call with strange questions and get impatient when you actually have to look for the answer, adults complain when kids make noise, people complain that it costs $.15 to print something... I could go on and on, but the point is, it's really disheartening.

There is just so little gratitude out there, and I don't understand it.  If you're getting something for nothing, you don't have to fall all over yourself thanking people, but you don't need to complain if it's not perfect either.  If an ice cream company wants to do a little promotion and you get free things, shouldn't you be happy about it?

I'm going to go put on my free sparkly lip gloss now. Thank you, Skinny Cow.