A man came home from work late, tired, and irritated. He had a really difficult day at the office. As he walked into the house, he found his 5-year-old daughter waiting for him at the door.
‘Daddy, may I ask you a question?’
‘Yeah sure, what it is?’ replied the man.
‘Daddy, how much do you make an hour?’
‘That’s none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?’ the man said angrily.
‘I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?’
‘If you must know, I make $50 an hour.’
‘Oh,’ the little girl replied, with her head down.
‘Daddy, may I please borrow $25?’
The father was furious, ‘If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I don’t work hard every day for such frivolous things.’ The little girl quietly went to her room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little girl’s questions. How dare she ask such questions only to get some money?
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think:
Maybe there was something she really needed to buy with that $25.00 and he really didn’t ask for money very often the man went to the door of the little girl’s room and opened the door.
‘Are you asleep?’ He asked.
‘No daddy, I’m awake,’ replied the girl.
‘I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier’ said the man. ‘It’s been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here’s the $25 you asked for.’
The little girl sat straight up, smiling. ‘Oh, thank you daddy!’ he yelled. Then, reaching under her pillow she pulled out some crumpled-up bills.
The man saw that the girl already had money, started to get angry again.
The little girl slowly counted out her money, and then looked up at her father.
‘Why do you want more money if you already have some?’ the father grumbled.
‘Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,’ she replied.
‘Daddy, I have $50 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Then you can come home early tomorrow and have dinner with me and then after dinner, we can have some time to play together.’
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.