On Marriage, Gift Economy, and Ranch Dressing
Pay attention to how the guy orders his ranch, ladies.
One of my favorite things about my husband is the way he asks for more ranch dressing.
If you’re a ranch lover, you know that it’s damn near impossible to get an appropriate amount of creamy goodness. Nowadays, you’re hard-pressed to find the godsend that is the gallon sized Hidden Valley dispenser that you had (if you were lucky) back in your high school cafeteria alongside the red and yellow Heinz twins. No, nowadays purveyors of pizza and chopped iceberg lettuce (with only two — maybe three — croutons) give the stuff out like they’re anemics at a blood drive.
What’s more, ranch costs money now. Okay, so it has always cost money… but not to us! We already spent our money on your dough and your cheese and your “house made” sauce that tastes an awful lot like you popped open a can of Prego. And now you want us to spend a buck fifty on a 2oz plastic container of “house made” ranch?
So you — you ranch lover, you — you often find yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to ask for more of the only reason you ordered that side of fries in the first place.
And you start saying: “Can I get some mo—”
No! Stop. Stop it. There’s a better way. A win-win way. There’s Dean’s way.
One of my favorite things about my husband is the way he asks for more ranch dressing.
Let’s take a look at the way my husband orders extra ranch. We’ll call him “Dean” (mostly because that’s his name).
When Dean and I are two slices in and already resorting to scraping the ranch-y lid with pizza-rinds, here’s the play:
Dean looks at the lid. I look at the lid. Dean looks at me. I look at me (no I don’t, that doesn’t make sense). And then he gets this grin on his face — more of a smirk, really — looks over at the counter and susses out the guy boxing up to-go pies. He stands up, still smirking at me, then turns toward the counter.
He ask this question:
“Hey — how much would it cost to get an extra side of ranch?”
And you might be thinking, the guy already brought up the fact that ranch costs money now? He’s gonna be eaten alive. And you’d be wrong.
The guy gets his ranch pro bono, y’all. He gets it. Every. Time.
Why?
When you come in directly with the assumption that you have to pay, you signal that you don’t care about the cost, you just want the ranch.
Because the people working behind the counter are so used to folks approaching them with some level of entitlement — customers expecting freebies and handouts — when you start from the assumption that something is going to cost you something, they get to be the ones who feel like they are doing you a favor.
Also… they don’t really want to have to ring up a charge for a buck-fifty. It’s so much easier to just hand it over.
On the other hand, when some especially entitled guy comes over to ask for some more ranch (and throws in some snide comment about the condition of the bathroom floors or how they really shouldn’t use canned mushrooms*) that cashier is going to make that dude fork over those six quarters, with pleasure.
So yes, ranch lover, there is a selfish element to this play, but Dean (and his ranch-loving wife) are not the only parties to benefit. This exchange is a micro-representation of classic gift economy. We are the receiver of the gift (and oh, what a gift) and the cashier is the giver, providing us with a free service at little to no risk. In return, our giver of ranch dressing gets the satisfaction of doing us a solid, freedom from ringing up a nominal purchase, and just a little bit of pleasure from subverting the authority of his establishment.
You’re doing the guy a favor by letting him do you a favor. So go forth and get your ranch.**
*In all fairness, canned mushrooms are a sour, slimy abomination.
**Or have “your people” do it for you (thanks, babe).