Thanks for sharing. I likely won’t forget the image of “An angel smoking a cigar” for a while.

In 1979 we moved from Orem to Seattle for graduate school. I had no idea how much more expensive life would be in Seattle than Orem. Rent was triple, and gas was double (we moved right at the time of the Iranian revolution). We packed everything we had into an 8-foot U-haul, and to avoid drop-off fees, we rented the U-haul to Yakima instead of Seattle. We didn’t have housing lined up in Seattle, but we naively figured we could just find a nice place once we got there.

Obviously, everything went wrong. We barely had enough money for gas to get to Seattle, and what little we had left we had to spend on accommodations until we found a place to live. When we finally found a house to rent, the trailer was 2 or 3 days overdue, and we had no money to take it to Yakima, let alone to pay the late fees. I called the U-haul center in Seattle to explain the situation, but they weren’t sympathetic. They said I would have to forfeit my deposit, pay the drop-off fees and pay the overdue fees. I said that I had no money, but I would come drop the trailer off anyway. I braced myself for the worst.

We had moved into the house in Seattle on Saturday evening, so it was Sunday morning before I could take the trailer back. I didn’t like the idea of doing business on Sunday, especially business in which I would have to ask for leniency in my agreements. But I figured it would just be worse to wait until Monday, so I set off. I told my wife I would go face the music and be back as soon as I could. I had a map of Seattle on the seat beside me, and I set off to look for the U-haul center.

I had gone a mile or so wrapped up in self-pitying thoughts of how stupid we were to move to Seattle with no money and no place to live. I was stopped at a traffic light when I became aware that the man beside me was honking at me. As I looked at him, he took a cigar out of his mouth and pointed across the street to a closed service station with U-haul trailers behind it. After I pulled into the service station behind him, he got out and said he was closed but I was in luck. He would just go ahead and take my trailer since he was in the area anyhow. I told him about being late and having agreed to take the trailer to Yakima. He looked at me, took the cigar out of his mouth again and said “I won’t tell if you won’t.” Then he gave me my $20 deposit.

I drove home dumfounded. When I got home, I showed my wife the $20 bill (which was what we needed to get through the next week), and told her that an angel smoking a cigar had given it to me.

Also, your point about the effect on the economy is totally irrelevant to the actual point of my post (since I never addressed the effect of unenforced bribes on the economy). However, “regardless of any relevance to (my comment)”, your point is correct. Much more irrelevant to the thread than mine, but correct, nonetheless. Thanks for the additional commentary.

To echo Tatiana, as usual, when “bribes” become simply a matter of life (when everyone knows about them and nobody does anything about them), they become no more than a business practice and a normal business cost. They cease to be “bribes”. They only resurrect as bribes if enforcement begins again.

Actually, I think tipping has more to do with restaurant owners holding their patrons hostage in order to pay their employees wages.