# How To Hit "Overdrawn" Status On Your Karmic Bank Account **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 13, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979 "2010-04-13T19:39:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/41 "2010-04-14T03:01:08Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > I AM ROVOTRON. SENTIMENTALITY IS IMPERFECT. EMOTIONS ARE OUTDATED. > text Meh. Emotion’s fine with me. I just don’t get the attitude of “I am poor now, everyone I’ve ever done anything nice for should now be looking to do nice things for me.” IOW, someone please call the whaaaaambulance for the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/42 "2010-04-14T03:08:39Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > I just don’t get the attitude of “I am poor now, everyone I’ve ever done anything nice for should now be looking to do nice things for me.” That’s an interesting thought. Really, I mean it, I find that thought seriously interesting. Does not a large part of human interaction consist of “I will gladly do you a favor today in exchange for a favor tomorrow”? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/43 "2010-04-14T03:14:17Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > IOW, someone please call the whaaaaambulance for the OP. Isn’t it great that the real world is [not like the internet?](http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2010/04/12/this_modern_world) Geez **Rand Rover** , you’ve become a walking caricature - even the cartoonists make fun of you now. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/44 "2010-04-14T03:20:03Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > The person who was piggybacking on their Wi-Fi for free charged them $50 for the bed. In a perfect world she would have given it to them as thanks for the past free Internet. > > But maybe they didn’t realize who they were selling it to. I thought the moral of the story was that karma rewarded her with a lovely, near-new Queen size bed for the bargain price of $50 for having been kind enough to share her internet with her neighbour. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/45 "2010-04-14T03:22:54Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > The person who was piggybacking on their Wi-Fi for free charged them $50 for the bed. In a perfect world she would have given it to them as thanks for the past free Internet. > > But maybe they didn’t realize who they were selling it to. $50 for a mostly brand new queen size bed w/headboard is a damn steal. Include the proximity of the bed purchase - no moving truck etc - it’s pretty good luck (karma). ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/46 "2010-04-14T03:36:10Z")
Oh, duh. :smack: Missed it by THAT much. ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/47 "2010-04-14T03:37:21Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Missed the edit window. The second-to-last sentence should read: > > In a perfect world she would have given it to them (or at least charged a lot less) as thanks for the past few months of free Internet. Cheaper than $50 for an almost new Queensize with headboard?! That didn’t require a truck to move?! Good grief! That bed is probably worth over $500. I think - I hope - the “karma” refers to getting an incrediable bargain with hassleless moving for dessert. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/48 "2010-04-14T03:51:40Z")
IMO the FIL back story added by the OP turned this into much less of a violation of “karma”. I will say that people need to recognize that when something is GIVEN to someone with an open hand you do not, as a matter of right, have any claim on how the recipient makes use of the gift. “Paying it forward” is nice concept, but it does not make the gift receiver a reprobate if the gift has a monetary value they will seek to exploit if they choose to sell the freely given object. People are dicks all the time, but in this circumstance sans any specific discussion of “Hey, we could really use that car I gave you a few years ago.” labeling the car seller as a dick is premature. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/49 "2010-04-14T04:10:01Z")
Maybe the FIL has given you the opening you need to bring up the car to Gary! “Hey, Gary, umm, I wasn’t going to bring it up, but just in case your boss corners you with his undies in a bundle, I thought I’d give you a heads-up. Now, you have the right to do anything you want with the Olds–I mean, we gave it to you free and clear–but he might think you should give it back to us. And I just wanted to warn you about his attitude before he comes storming in.” ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/50 "2010-04-14T05:25:50Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Anyone up for another karmic tale? > > I know a woman who, finding herself in a dangerous relationship, flees to a shelter with her 4 children, 3 under 5yrs, one a babe in arms. The douchebag father refuses her any financial support and manages to stay under the radar working under the table jobs etc. > > She returns to college, on social welfare, while the kids are in public school. Gets a job in IT, and manages, on one salary to raise 4 awesome children. One’s about to graduate from a masters program in health sciences, ones just entered Police College, one’s working and the last is still a teenager in high school. > > One of the ways she managed, was by never renting anything larger than a 2 bedroom apartment. That meant, for the 15+ yrs she has, every night, made up a bed on the living room couch. No bedroom of her own, not even a bed. Take a minute to consider that, please. > > She comes home from work one night and sees a note on the apartment entry with a phone number to call if you have this named network. It’s a Wifi thing, and it was her network. She calls the number and a woman explains, her mother, who lives in the building, is in declining help, and she’ll be staying for a while and would love to share her network, she’ll happily kick in. My friend is nothing if not generous and helpful, and, as she gets the connection through her work, she says, ‘no worries, no need to kick in, here’s the password, hope your Mom’s okay soon’. The woman is delighted and thanks her very much. > > That was a couple of months ago. As the child going to police college is going in another town, as is the graduate student, suddenly she finds herself with an actual room of her own. She starts to look into buying a bed. But beds are expensive and she still has college to kick in for, so she puts it off and just sleeps on a cot for some weeks, still delighted to have her own room. > > She comes home from work, one night, to see a sign saying Moving Sale Saturday. She’s a shy woman but thinks since it’s in the building she’ll go check it out. > > I’m sure you can see where this is going. The mother is being moved to full care and they are selling the furniture. Including an almost brand new queen sized bed with a lovely headboard. When she asked how much, they said $50. She couldn’t believe her luck, she didn’t even have to have a delivery vehicle, just got one of her boys and his friends to move it! > > It wasn’t until later that they all figured out the connection with the Wifi. > > Karma is a funny thing, ain’t it? Yeah, I’m not so sure about that one. The person who wanted the Wi-Fi came offering compensation, and your friend declined and said just go ahead and use it. That ends the transaction IMO - the entire point of offering compensation is that they didn’t want to be forever in your friend’s debt for some unpredictable favor and they aren’t necessarily accepting those terms by accepting the gift without compensation. They don’t really owe her a bed just because she did them a favor. Of course it would have been nice, but it’s wrong to get upset that they didn’t. Edit: after reading some of the replies I’m realizing I may have misunderstood the story - she wasn’t expecting them to just give it to her, they did do her a favor by giving it to her for a bargain price and so it’s a happy story, right? I was initially confused since the OP’s story (before the addendum) was supposed to be a negative one. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/51 "2010-04-14T07:41:48Z")
Maybe you should ask if he reported the gift of the car to the IRS? Of course, if you were just loaning him the car, and got it back, wouldn’t be a gift, then… ---
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/52 "2010-04-14T10:27:01Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Yeah, I’m not so sure about that one. The person who wanted the Wi-Fi came offering compensation, and your friend declined and said just go ahead and use it. The fact that the woman also, according to the post, got WiFi through work, implies that she wasn’t paying for it anyway so in effect she’s giving away for free something that she already got for free. Therefore, to have asked for payment in the first place would have been wrong since it wasn’t costing her anything to let someone else use a free network. However, it was very decent of the other folks to sell her a bed for a much-reduced price as recognition of her initial kindness. The karmic scales are far more in their favour than hers. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/53 "2010-04-14T11:39:31Z")
Sorry, I should have been clearer. \*\* ScareyFaerie\*\* is right, she paid nothing for the wifi, so refused any compensation, when offered. They sold her the bed at a bargain, before any of them realized that they had already spoken to each other on the phone, and that this was the woman who’s wifi they had been using, for all those months. Sorry I wasn’t clear. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/54 "2010-04-14T13:16:39Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > I didn’t see this before my post above. Look, it seems to me that you are talking out of both sides of your mouth here, especially in the bolded part above. I’ll try to straighten it out for you: You gave him the car. It’s his car. He owns the car. There’s this car, and Gary owns it. > > I own a car. Are you mad at me for not giving it to you? You should feel the same way about Gary and his car IMHO. Ok, I’ll try and make this nice and simple, just for you: Gary can do whatever he likes with the car. It would have been considerate of him to see if we’d like it back first. End of story. He didn’t _have_ to check with us, it simply would’ve been the decent thing to do. Check back at what I wrote: I’m “a little peeved” at him for this. Being a little peeved at people when they don’t take the opportunity to do the decent thing is, for the rest of us, pretty much the baseline reaction. And no, I’m not at all mad at you – I pity you. I know my current situation, and for sake of the thread I’ll even take your constant braggadocio at face value – and I know I’m still richer than you could imagine. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/55 "2010-04-14T13:26:18Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Meh. Emotion’s fine with me. I just don’t get the attitude of “I am poor now, everyone I’ve ever done anything nice for should now be looking to do nice things for me.” > > IOW, someone please call the whaaaaambulance for the OP. Too bad this story already has a Gary… guess you can be the Minge. ---
**Author:** ![Khaki\_Campbell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Khaki\_Campbell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khaki_Campbell)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/56 "2010-04-14T13:49:20Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Geez **Rand Rover** , you’ve become a walking caricature - even the cartoonists make fun of you now. I’m afraid that he’s so much of a caricature that cartoons are moot : he has become his own parody. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/57 "2010-04-14T14:04:08Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > Ok, I’ll try and make this nice and simple, just for you: > > Gary can do whatever he likes with the car. It would have been considerate of him to see if we’d like it back first. End of story. > > He didn’t _have_ to check with us, it simply would’ve been the decent thing to do. Check back at what I wrote: I’m “a little peeved” at him for this. Being a little peeved at people when they don’t take the opportunity to do the decent thing is, for the rest of us, pretty much the baseline reaction. There is nothing indecent about Gary trying to sell the car (or entering it into a junk car derby or turning it into a planter in his backyard). Offering it back to you for free is not “the decent thing,” it’s just one of the options he has. > [@](#): > > And no, I’m not at all mad at you – I pity you. I know my current situation, and for sake of the thread I’ll even take your constant braggadocio at face value – and I know I’m still richer than you could imagine. Yes, I know. I have more money than you and greater earning potential, so that automatically means that I have less authentic relationships with other people. I leave work late for a sterile home where I play with my expensive toys by myself, while you have a close-knit group of family and friends that you wouldn’t trade for all the money in the world. If the myth of the poor rich man is what you need to believe to feel less bad about the choices you’ve made, then rock on with your bad self, but it’s still a myth. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/58 "2010-04-14T14:06:36Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > There is nothing indecent about Gary trying to sell the car (or entering it into a junk car derby or turning it into a planter in his backyard). Offering it back to you for free is not “the decent thing,” it’s just one of the options he has. As I understood the story, the OP was “a little peeved” because he thought the guy he had given the car to for free a few years ago had heard that he needed a car and was offering to sell it back to him. You can admit that would’ve been a dick move, right? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/59 "2010-04-14T14:07:13Z")
**Rand** , you wouldn’t know “the decent thing to do” if it bit you in the ass. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979/60 "2010-04-14T14:24:05Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > As I understood the story, the OP was “a little peeved” because he thought the guy he had given the car to for free a few years ago had heard that he needed a car and was offering to sell it back to him. You can admit that would’ve been a dick move, right? Yes. But the OP has now said that he’s still peeved that Gary didn’t offer to give him the car back, and I think that’s ridiculous. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hit-overdrawn-status-on-your-karmic-bank-account/535979.md?page=4)