Dear Readers,
I’m reminded of a funny story about this one time my brother Borris, who is a lawyer, wouldn’t sign a contract that his son Bames brought home from kindergarten. The contract said that the parents would read to their kid every night for 10 minutes or something like that. Borris’s wife Balea really wanted Borris to sign it.
(Borris or Balea, if you’re reading this, I’d be glad to have your version of the story- you can leave it in the comments.) But the way I remember the story was…
Balea put a pen and the contract into Borris’ hands and said, “Oh, Borris, just sign the contract! All the other parents are signing it.”
And Borris said, “I don’t care if all the other parents are signing it. I already read to Bames just about every night anyway, so why do I have to sign a contract saying that I promise to do something that I already regularly, naturally do? Plus, what if we both get really sick and lose our voices one night and so neither of us can read to our son, and we don’t live up to our contractual obligation of reading to Bames every night? Then we would have broken the contract, gone back on our word, and been even worse parents! We would be teaching our son by example that it’s OK to make promises you don’t intend to keep. It’s better to not make a promise than it is to make a promise and break it.”
Balea said, “Borris, you’re taking this whole thing way too seriously. Everybody knows that this contract isn’t legally binding. And I doubt that every parent who signs this contract is going to read to their child every night for at least 10 minutes for the entire school year.”
Borris says, “But that’s what they should do if they sign the contract! That’s what the contract says! It says, ‘I agree to read to my child every night for at least ten minutes.’ And then it has the dotted line where we’re supposed to sign. Also, why should we have to read to him at night? What if we’re early risers, and we prefer reading to him in the morning before school? Why does the contract stipulate mandatory night-time reading?"
Borris continued, "Furthermore, Balea, if this were a better contract, then it would have a clause in there that something like, ‘you get ten nights of time off from reading to your child in case of sickness or family emergency or other personal reasons.’ Not only that, but the contract says simply, ‘read to your child every night,’ which means, because it does not qualify the phrase ‘every night,’ every night for the rest of eternity! That’s what it means! That’s just ridiculous! I’m not going to agree to read to Bames every night for the rest of eternity, and I can’t understand why any sane, honest parent would agree to something like that. Who would be so idiotic as to sign something like that?”
“Well apparently I would be so idiotic to sign it!” Balea yelled, and then stormed out of the room.
Now Bames is known at school as, “The kid with the weird Dad who wouldn’t sign the reading contract.”
Sincerely,
Telemoonfa
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3 comments:
You tell the story way better than I ever could.
Contracts should be taken seriously. In fact, you can trace the entire economic situation this world is facing to people not taking contracts seriously.
"Hey home buyer, just sign this mortgage application. Don't worry about it. If anything goes wrong, later on, you can refinance or sell, and home prices are appreciating."
"Hey Wall Street guy, just sign this contract for this bundle of loans, don't worry about it. We're selling you 10,000 loans, even if a few of them don't work out, there are so many the risk is spead out thin so it's a safe investment."
"Hey fellow big banker type, just sign this credit default swap contract, don't worry about it. I'll make periodic payments and as the value of the debt instrument is paid off, I will have a stake in the profits. It's a way of spreading out the risk that some of the debt won't be paid off."
Where do you think all this started? Probably in classrooms not unlike the one I sat in where I was propositioned with a simple piece of paper to formalize something that should be informal. If people get in the habit of formalizing the trivial without thinking, they may habitually formalize something they should have been thinking about more carefully.
"Maybe we don't have the income to support this mortgage payment in a few years. Oh well, if there is one thing I remember from school, it's that signing things is important, so I better just sign this and move on."
When enough people in a society do think like this, we get the economy we have.
I'm being kind of silly, but kind of serious too.
The Boid
Kekeke... Borris.
Umm. the funny thing is, these contracts will prolly be thrown away and forgotten upon the return of them to the teacher.
And the kids at school will forget that his dad did not sign the contract. Would it even be a big deal?
kekeke...
What a bunch of hooey!!! Um, that was a good little tirade by two certain red-headed brothers, and perhaps a fine little anecdote, but it was 90% FICTION!!! If you want the ACTUAL unfolding of events you can email "Balea" any ole' time. :) And thank you to Sparrow for having some "down-to-earth" sense!
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