There's no such thing as free lunch.

Last night, I received a text message from our streetdance teacher. Apparently, the management of the gym studio where we dance saw our routine the other night and liked how we were all dancing in class. We were then invited to do the opening dance number for their kids' summer dance recital this morning. In exchange for the performance, we were offered free lunch by the gym management.

I automatically texted our instructor yes because 1) I was free and was planning to go the gym anyway and 2) I wanted to dance. The free lunch was only a bonus for me. I even asked him if I could just go home after the dance and not join the lunch anymore because I actually like eating at home ever since our new cook arrived. But he insisted that I should have lunch with them as it was the TF (talent fee) for that performance.

I agreed.

I went on as planned and met up with our instructor and the rest of my classmates. And without further practice, we performed in front of all the parents and kids. As much as I would like to say that we rocked the house with our dance performance, we did not.

We actually stopped in the middle of the dance, as if frozen in time, not doing anything aside from looking at each other with questioning looks. "What's next?" That was a big no-no in any kind of performance. We had the music cut in the middle and our dance instructor explained over the microphone why we were not in our usual performance level. In other words, we lacked practice. Luckily, the audience just laughed it off.

Then we started from the top again and this time, finished the entire song. It was pretty ok but it was far from spectacular. We received polite applause and smiles from all those who watched. It was a no-pressure event. Thank God.

After performing, we watched the rest of the kids and teenagers dance on stage.

One of my dance classmates said, "The kids' lunch is much better than ours."
Gullible me thought he took a peek at the buffet table or something.
I replied, "Why? what's their food?"
He said, "No, their performance deserves better lunch."
I laughed.

When we were about to eat, our group's free lunch turned out to be a carrot cake and Gatorade.
Maybe our performance was not worthy of a free lunch. Our performance was worth a carrot cake each.

But our dance instructor was the one who felt responsible for us and decided that he'd treat all of us to lunch then we'd simply have our free carrot cake as dessert. How sweet. So he asked for the carrot cake to be served later on.

We ordered lunch c/o our instructor and ate healthily. Everything went on smoothly and we were all having fun chatting about healthy lifestyles when our instructor asked for the carrot cakes to be brought out. I saw his face change as the waitress came out with the tray.

The carrot cake turned out to be half a carrot muffin for each of us.

That's it. Our performance was not even worth an entire piece of carrot cake. It was worth a bottle of Gatorade and half a carrot muffin which our instructor computed all together as P65 each.

As they say, there is no such thing as free lunch. We all have to earn it.

And today, we had to dance for it. Because our dance was not at par with expectations, I think our free lunch got demoted to free refreshments.

P.S.
Special thanks to our instructor, Kenneth Bernardo, who took all of us under his wings and fed us lunch with his own money.