The favor

I gave Belinda a dollar to buy me a school newspaper. The paper cost fifty cents. She returned holding a Kit-Kat in one hand, the paper in the other. The paper was even smeared with small smudges of chocolate. I asked her for my change. She, of course, didn't have it any longer. She held up the Kit-Kat as evidence, then split two of the bars off and handed them to me. "Here's your change," she said. I pointed out that, if the bar cost fifty cents, the entire bar should be my change. She disagreed. "I take a fee," she said, "for doing favors." I argued that favors are just that: favors. Therefore they should be free. She disagreed, as she would continue to do for the rest of the time I would know her, which turned out to be about another four months. At graduation she split for San Francisco, and two years later I happened to discover that her friend was my boss's daughter. I asked where Belinda might be. The daughter said, "Oh, I hear she's in California somewhere, married to a coffee grinder. You're not still after the fifty cents, are you?"