We work close to one another since I started my new job. So we decided to carpool to work together every day, using my car since you don’t have one. Thing is, you don’t live on my route to work, so I have to go out of my way to pick you up first. This was fine because we both agreed that you’d pay me $70/month for gas. You gave me the money at the beginning of the month.
Then in the middle of this past month, my car broke down. The repairs were extremely costly and I had to wait till my next pay to be able to afford them, so my car was out of commission for a good two weeks, leaving you to take the bus. I stayed with a friend who lived walking distance to my work. This left me in financial disarray. I figured since you were a friend you’d be understanding of my situation.
I was wrong. You then demanded I give you half of the $70 back for this month. The problem was, I didn’t have the money to give back to you! After I explained this to you, you said when I get paid again to pay you then. That money has to go to my rent and groceries. Now that my car’s working again, I am able to drive you this month. But then you said you would only give me $35 for the entire month, and IF I drove you every day! I argued it was too expensive for me to pick you up and drop you off five days a week, every week, for only $35. I understand that I didn’t completely live up to my part of the bargain last month, but I was broke!! I DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY TO GIVE YOU!! I had a legit reason for this. I don’t spend what little money I have on frivolous shit, and after spending all of it on the essentials, I literally didn’t have the 35 bucks you are hounding me for. If I did, I would have given you it!
As a friend, and not some acquaintance I happen to be carpooling with, I thought you would be more sympathetic. You’re not as broke as I am. But after getting all nasty about getting a measly 35 bucks back, I borrowed the money from my mom and gave it to you. You happy now? —Broke as Fuck
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2012.
I agree with her side. THat’s $35 she is out and potentially also can’t afford. You should have OFFERED to only take $35. If it is SO measly, why don’t you have it to pay to her? Come on now. I’m pretty reasonable but all your arguments could double as hers.
I see where you’re coming from OB but I doubt that your friend is rolling in the dough either. They paid you $70 for a month’s worth of transportation and they only got 2 weeks, which means that they had to spend about $36 in bus tickets to get to work for those two weeks when your car was out of commission.
It sucks that your car broke down and that it’s expensive, yada, yada, yada.. but why should your friend be the one out of $35? If it were me I would have offered to split the cost with my friend.. both of us out $17.50 and that’s it.
” I argued it was too expensive for me to pick you up and drop you off five days a week, every week, for only $35.”
Tough titty. You owed them 2 weeks worth of rides.
It’s funny that you are only NOW complaining about how your friend doesn’t live on your route to work, and that you have to go out of your way… If you don’t want to do it, tell them. Don’t complain AFTER THE FACT that it’s out of your way and that $70/month isn’t enough, etc.
Idiotic. If you paid for a meal and the server took your plate half way through what would you say? She paid you for the whole month and did not receive what she paid for in full. You owe her either $35 or a half month of free rides. Don’t take money up front and then fail to deliver the goods. You are in the wrong, it might suck, you might not have the money right now but bottom line is your friend paid and you didn’t deliver. Clear!?
Agree with the comments. During the transit strike, my ride to work called me 5 minutes before work started to tell me she couldn’t get her car to start. I paid 25 bucks to cab to fucking Shearwater. When I finally got there (WAY LATE) she was literally lol’ing that it started and she was just a little late for work! I didn’t have the 25 dollars for that cab that day, and couldn’t afford what ended up being my “morning off” while I waited for a cab, I could have walked if I had known 2 hours before work started that I didn’t have a ride. Your friend was paying you 70 bucks to go to and from work 5 days a week? You can get a bus pass for that and have unlimited regular transit access for a whole month. I’m sorry but I think you’re a jerk.
Oh, suck it the fuck up, you big baby. If giving back the $35 you owe your friend is really going to break you, you shouldn’t have a car in the first place. No sympathy here!
Yeah, that car is sucking you dry if you’re that broke…
plates, insurance, gas, oil changes, parking….
It’s expensive and not a necessity.
Were I the ‘friend’ getting short-changed like that, I’ be using the 70 on a bus pass.
At least when they break down, they send another bus.
Also, I’m guessing based on ‘her responses’ in your words, you basically didn’t offer up any solutions going forward and just wanted to try and sweep this under the rug with any form of retribution. Tell me you’re not studying economics… PLEASE.
The whine of this bitch sounds like a billion mosquitoes pumping out multiple orgasms in my fucking ears – if a few bucks is going to break a friendship, it wasn’t worth shit to begin with.
Maybe, just maybe. Having to drive out of the way to help a friend out was the straw that broke the camels back. That being said, if one person in a circle of friends has a motor vehicle and usually drives friends around for gas money, if the car breaks down its exclusively the owners responsibility to pay for all the repairs. The people at fault of making the car be used more than normal don’t have to pay a cent. I’m on the bitches side. Think about it, if that person had gotten a flat tire going out of the way to pick up the friend, it wouldn’t come out of the friends pocket to fix it. If they both work together, they must have similar pay cheques. Why can one person afford a car and the other can’t, they’re both broke. One with legitimate expenses though, doesn’t sound like I’d want that person as a friend.
in a situation like this o.p., give the asshole his 35 bucks, and tell him to fuck off, and never bother you again. let’s see how much luck he will have finding someone else to be nice to him. if it were me, he would have had the cash shoved down his fucking throat with a rake handle. but you are you, and i am a miserable fuck, who don’t take shit like that.
Did you compose the post; How to turn 30 minutes into 2 hours? We’re you the pisstain who broke down mid-span?
judge judy sez…you will be hung from the neck until pronounced dead…next case pleeze 🙂
OP I feel for you.You must be hurting after realizing that you mean less than $70 to your “friend”.
friends and money can be a toxic mixture
Business is business. You sold a month’s worth of driving for $70, so pay up you cheap SOB.
Lol, you guys are arguing over 35 dollars. That shit is funny!!!
Am I understanding this correctly? You expect your friend to not only eat the $35 she paid in advance, for half a months’ drive she didn’t get…You also expect her to pay the full $70 this month? Nah…I have to be reading it wrong.
Steve Somebody has to wash the dishes.
You’re dead wrong OP.You owe your friend $35.00 or should drive them around the next month for $35.00. That’s a perfectly reasonable request. If they came to rely on you, that means they were quite inconvenienced. I might have driven them for free for the next month.
Steve Sorry,I’m really not picking on you.
What makes you think you’re friends? Work colleagues, yes. Friends? Well do you hang out other than work, do you shop or go to the movies together or anything else outside work? If not, then you are not friends but colleagues.
Further your deal was $70 a month for transport and I doubt you discussed maintnence issues. The car and its upkeep is your responsibility not your colleague’s.
It certainly seems, these days when a so called friend tells you they have your back, you GD better watch out for the knife they end up stabbing you in the back with. Not many people know the meaning of loyalty anymore.
..i remember the last time I got messed up over 35 bucks..oh wait ..no I can’t 🙂
nice one Marty… excellent timing.
I’m still stuck at this ridiculous statement a ways back…
“If they both work together, they must have similar pay cheques.”
That has to be the craziest assumption I’ve heard in a looooooong time.
BLATANTLY false.
That’s like saying all fish that swim in the ocean must be the same size.
“measly 35 bucks back” … didn’t seem so measly when you needed it …
Exactly Zed…I work with surgeons. ‘Nuff said. lol
So Zed and Nurse, how many surgeons hang around with Mcdonalds employee’s. How many lawyers and judges hang around with gas pumpers. Friends are generally in the same social class, especially in this “diverse city”. And when there has been an identical story circulating around my work for more than a couple weeks, then it appears as an identical anonymous bitch, that means some us may have a little more information than others. Its a small world old man. So I’m sorry an assumption was made, that was based on the current facts.
The bitch says they work near each other, not together. And also, just because 2 people make the same amount of money doesn’t mean they have the same amount of disposable income, especially when one has a car.
Good point Brand New! NEAR each other could mean two streets over, who knows? You summed it all up nicely
Sonic… you’re crazy.
If it is indeed the situation you suggest, well ok. You may have more detail than what was presented… but this…
“Friends are generally in the same social class, especially in this “diverse city””
Is just talking out of your ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIVttyxPxnE
You think SHE can afford not to get her $35 back? She’s taking the bus now and it’s too late to buy a pass. You were unable to live up to your end of an agreement. $70/MONTH. That its not your fault has nothing to do with it. You failed to live up to it. Now you have to pay her back and instead you ream her out on the coast.
You’re selfish op.