Give the storyteller a chance. He is telling you about the garage door having slipped its hinges and demolished three bicycles and a Volkswagen. You’re apt to lunge in instantly with your own garage-door story or, worse, the merits of Volkswagens versus Audis people slippy-slide so from subject to subject before the storyteller is [...]

Everything costs something. And so you may be a friend who gives selflessly, endlessly—money and gifts as well as counsel and cheer, without wanting a thing in return but hold on a minute you should want something in return. You hold that person’s marker. Maybe you don’t want to be paid back in kind or [...]

How far do you go for non-friends, just acquaintances, who make demands? You go as far as you can without splattering. The little stuff you do because it’s no trouble and helping people is basic mouseburger. When the requests get federal, you stop. Sometimes you can’t tell what they’re up to. At the Private World [...]