Come on, man, just take the money. Who doesn’t want twenty bucks? Listen, it’s simple: All I’m asking is for you to stop accusing me of only being a decent person when I expect to get something in return. It’s just not true! But since you won’t give it up, I have no recourse but to offer you what is frankly a very reasonable sum of money which will hopefully persuade you to change your opinion on the matter.
Remember when you were in the hospital with kidney stones and I brought you your Switch to help pass time? Then later, when I told you to take my admittedly flatulent and kind of racist grandmother to the airport, you had the nerve to accuse me of holding that hospital favor over your head just because I immediately did that when you said you couldn’t get her.
If you’re so convinced I’m this monster who can only view relationships in terms of “What can I get out of it?” why don’t you go ahead and ask my girlfriend what she thinks? Not now of course. She’s outside washing my car. She asked if we could take her mother out for a birthday dinner this weekend and four car washes seems like a fair exchange to me. Generous, even.
I’ll have you know I do nice things for people all the time. Okay, yes, I do record each act of kindness in a ledger book and will at times call upon those people to reciprocate. Is that so strange?
I said I’d feed your cat while you’re away, didn’t I? All I asked in return is that you sign a little contract that you owe me a favor of equal or greater value (to be determined by me). You balked at what was a completely equitable transac- I mean, deal. Or agreement between good friends. Yeah…
So you’re not going to take the twenty? Whatever. How about instead, I’ll just buy you lunch? Great! And on your way to the diner, you can pick up my dry cleaning since you’ll be passing right by anyhow.