There’s something wrong with the car.
“There’s something wrong with the car.”
“What?”
“Not sure, but it needs fixing.”
“How do you know there’s something wrong with it?”
“Well, all that smoke coming out of the back for a start…”
“It’s always done that.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s OK.”
“Well how much will it cost to fix?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it will be cheap.”
“But I’m not working at the moment, I haven’t got any money.”
“Well we can split the cost between all of us.”
“What? Evenly?”
“Sure, why not?”
“But I don’t do half as many miles in it as anyone else does?”
“Maybe not, but you have it for the same amount of time as everyone else.”
“Yeah, but Joe does ten times the mileage I do, so does Thomas! And Chen really hammers it!”
“Don’t worry, they know you’re a bit short at the moment, so they’ve offered to give you some money to help you pay for your share.”
“But I don’t want to borrow money!”
“No, not a loan – they’ll just give it to you.”
“…OK, but how much?”
“What does it matter if they’re giving it to you?”
“Well, it might not be enough.”
“I’m sure it will be enough, but I’m not sure exactly how much.”
“No! That’s not good enough. I need to know how much, and whether it’s going to be enough.”
“But we don’t know exactly what’s wrong with the car yet, or how much it will cost to fix.”
“So? What’s the problem? Just find out.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will be quite expensive to find out what’s wrong with it.”
“But I’m not working at the moment, I haven’t got any money.”
“That’s OK, because the rest will give you the money.”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t want to borrow money.”
“But they’ll give you the money, it won’t be a loan.”
“How much?”
“I’m not sure, because we don’t know how long it will take to find out what’s wrong with it.”
“I’m not happy.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll still be paying the same as everyone else.”
“But they’re giving you the money, and you do have the car for exactly the same number of days as everyone else.”
“That’s not the point, it’s the principle of it. I don’t use it as much.”
“If it makes you feel any better, we’ve written up an agreement for us all to sign, so that we each know where we stand.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t change the principle of it. Besides, I’m not sure I want so sign it until I know exactly what’s wrong with the car, and exactly how much it’s going to cost to fix.”
“But until you sign it, we can’t find that out!”
“Why not?”
“Because you won’t get the money until the agreement’s signed, and without the money we can’t find out what’s wrong with it.”
“So you’re asking me to sign something to agree to pay to find out how much to pay for something when I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, and without even being sure that it can be fixed anyway.”
“Well … yes.”
“That’s crazy! Nobody in their right mind would do that!”
“Look, we’re all in this together, we just have to trust each other.”
“So can you promise that if I sign, the car will get fixed and everything will go back to how it was before?”
“Well no, not really, because we don’t know exactly how serious the problem is.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not signing.”
“But you have to, everyone’s coming around later.”
“I don’t care. We’ll have to pay to find out first, then I might sign.”
“But we won’t have the money until you sign.”
“We’ll we’re stuck then aren’t we.”
“Looks like it.”
“I may as well go home.”
“Well I’ll ask everyone to give it some thought, and we’ll organise another meeting.”
“OK, that’s fine by me. See you soon.”
“Er – how are you getting home?”
“By car – it’s my turn.”
“You can’t really do that.”
“Why not?”
“There's something wrong with the car.”
Comments
if your car breaks down you goto the mechanic, without knowing the cost or how to fix the problem and even if you learn how to fix cars and what the problem was etc you still won’t have any guarantees that the car will be in ‘tip=top’ or that the old girl won’t break down again.
interesting analogy though, very entertaining.
