« A hundred facts about my sordid life | Home | The Month of November 2006 »
“Can I borrow some money?”
By bigpumpkin | November 8, 2006
Fess up. Do you get all uncomfortable and sweaty whenever that question is posed directly to your face? Like your veins suddenly expand as you are caught off guard and you switch immediately, subconsciously into defense mode?
I was asked that today.
My instant response without thinking was, “How much?” rather than “No”. I have done enough money lending in my lifetime to live by the rule that I only give, not lend. Chasing money that is owed belongs to the world of business, not between friends and family. If we’re talking a hundred bucks because there was no time to go to the bank this week, sure. But what if it was a thousand?
All money that I have ever lent in the past somehow never made it back to my bank account. Over time, they got lost with the wind. The discomfort of asking becomes too much to bear and at some point, you just give up.
If I had cash to spare, I’d happily give. But I don’t. Not right now.
Yet. I was once in that same position where I needed to borrow 10,000 dollars. I had a big cheque for the sale of my car that hadn’t yet cleared but I had to put in a big deposit for the apartment that I wanted to rent. Pronto. Being fresh in the workforce meant no savings.
In desperation and not wanting to go through the whole circus of apartment hunting again, I made a call to my dad to ask the taboo question. He told me he didn’t have 10,000 dollars. Yeah, right.
I made a few more calls explaining that I will pay it back in exactly 4 days.
One sweet angel said sure. Magic to my ears. He traipsed to the bank that very day to hand me the cash. I remember it so vividly. We met and he delivered the 10,000 cash in an A4 brown envelope. I thanked him and passed him an ‘I owe you’ note. He binned it. I felt so blessed. We parted.
Another time, another knight saviour, did the dreaded task of breaking his fixed deposit account just so I could have the cash I badly needed. It has been repaid. Bless his heart.
I will never forget these 2 kind souls. The trust that they placed in me will always be much appreciated and I will be forever grateful.
Today, my younger cousin asked me for 4,000 dollars. He said that his hard earned money was kept in a joint account with his mother but since they were arguing, she had refused to give him the money. He has just secured a good job in Melbourne and would like to bring his Chinese wife with him. There is a deadline as he starts work in 2 weeks and needs to process his wife’s visa application, airfare et al.
From my game of twenty questions, I deduced that his mother did not approve of his wife tagging along. Jealousy perhaps? I couldn’t understand why he’d kept all his money with his mother but he said his mother had always controlled him. I suggested he reasoned with his mother at a better time and at worst case, to borrow the money from another relative who actually HAD some money? But he didn’t want any of it to get back to his mother. Fishy?
I thought so. But I felt sorry for him. Without hearing 2 sides of the coin, I will never know if he was being completely honest or if he was trying to pull a fast one.
Topics: Split the Pumpkin!, The Pumpkin life |
One Response to ““Can I borrow some money?””
Comments
Comments protected by Lucia's Linky Love.
November 10th, 2006 at 10:40 am
I’m having probs with my next door neighbour who frequently asks to borrow money fr us. The 1st time he asked for RM1K & we gave him as he said that he needed to pay his car loan. He promised to return in 3-4 days which dragged on to amost a month (inspite of us asking for it many times). After a few months after that episode, he asked to borrow RM300 which he promised again to return in a few days after he got his pay. This again he did not do & he wanted to borrow from another neighbour to repay us!! So far he has borrowed from 4 of my immediate neighbours, sigh! When he asked for the 3rd time, I refused. One of my other neighbour from whom he has borrowed money was so mad that he went to his working place & shouted him for the return money!