I’m a man of honour who lives by a few moral standards. One
of these is: squeeze the last drop out of
every rupee. Left to myself, I’m able to adhere to this principle. For
example, though I frequently miss breakfast when I travel, I don’t do this if
breakfast is included in the room rate. Sometimes, when the meeting organizers
insist on “starting bright and early”, this means reaching the breakfast area
at 7.15 a.m., a time when I’m less awake than hungry, groggily loading up my
plate and eating my painful way through it. I do this whether I have paid for
the room or my company because it’s the principle of the thing, not the money.
Or rather, the money is the principle, not whose
money.
However I’m often thwarted from following the path of honour
by my wife.
Many parking lots in Singapore require drivers to display pre-paid
parking tickets with the date and time of parking punched out in half-hour
slots. Last month my wife requested me to drive her on a specific shopping
errand. At the parking lot, before punching holes in the ticket, I turned to
her.
“Will you be done in half an hour?”
“Why?” she asked.
“So that I can punch the appropriate time in this parking
coupon.”
“Oh, in that case, make it one hour – to be safe.”
I explained that it was more important not to waste a
punched coupon than ‘to be safe’ but she stuck to her estimate, so I punched
two half-hour coupons worth 50 cents each and accompanied her to the shop.
