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| Are you seriously telling me that this pile here is not worth 20 bucks? |
When I was young my dad was into making promises. He would promise that if we preformed some sort of task he would reward us, pay us, or match our money for some major purchase that we were wanting to make. Over the years he promised us a dune buggy, to help us build a fort, and at one point he told us that when we turned 12 we could get a real gun like a .22 rifle.
Those were all let downs but the worst to me was when he would promise some juicy piece rate, misunderstanding the scope of the work, and I would work hard based on the promised wage only to have him renege and give us something of much less value. Once upon a Saturday morning he offered me a penny a rock for all the rocks I picked out of the garden and so I went right to work. 100 rocks was a crisp dollar bill and so, to get 20 bucks(my richness criteria at the time) I would pull out 2000 rocks. I wanted to get my 2000 rocks so badly that I dug around in the garden all day until I had a huge pile. 2 feet tall and 4 foot wide by 6 foot long, I think we can agree that is a huge pile of rocks. 2000 rocks on the nose, actually. When my dad got home from work I was sitting there tired but rich on top of my twenty dollar rock pile. I relayed the good news, mission accomplished dad, you're welcome.
Then all the sudden he started getting amnesic about our penny-a-rock deal, he told me he had said he would pay me some but not 20 dollars so he gave me five. I would have stopped a five-damn-hundred rocks for five lousy bucks, I was furious having had 15 dollars stolen from me so I went right up to him and said nothing. I went to my room and cried. At least I learned never to trust him again, that lesson didn't stick and I was burned again and again.
