Borrowing Money
To translate from a Russian joke, borrowing money is taking someone else’s: temporary; giving back your own: forever.
This is a story about my great-uncle Fred. His name is not Fred, of course, because I don’t want to reveal which one of my thirteen great-uncles created this ingenious scheme.
My great-uncle Fred asked to borrow 100 rubles from my mother. He was notorious for not returning money, but he knew how to work my mother. He whined about being sick and urgently needing to buy pills, until my mother, who has a big heart and is an easy touch, gave up. Of course, Fred wasn’t in a hurry to return the money. But 100 rubles was a lot of money for my mother and she wasn’t planning on giving up trying to get it back. My mother started bugging her uncle with increased intensity. Finally Fred promised to return the money as a gift for mom’s upcoming birthday.
Of course, it was tacky to present the money he owed as a gift, but my mom was so glad that she would finally get her money back, that she was actually looking forward to it.
During her party, as the guests sat around the table, Fred got up to give the birthday toast. Then Fred handed my mother an envelope and said, “Congratulations on your birthday! Here is a gift for you.” Everyone applauded.
My mom felt that something in this scene was not quite right. Why was the applause so enthusiastic when he was just returning a debt? After the party my mother decided to investigate. It turned out that Fred explained to my mother’s relatives that she prefered money as a birthday gift and collected the gift money from everyone. The cash he returned as his debt in the envelope was not his. Everyone else thought he was presenting the joint gift, except for my mother, who was made to believe that he was repaying his debt.
After that my mother stopped bugging her uncle Fred. It became clear she couldn’t match his superb skills in escaping his debts.
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