How much would you be willing to pay to get rid of somebody?

We’ve heard it before “give him a 20$ and tell him to get lost”. But how far would you really go to get rid of somebody and regain your peace of mind? For me, the test happened during a road trip on the East Coast of Tasmania.

It sounded good at first. We met this French girl, M, who wanted to go on a road trip and she had a friend, A, who wanted to come as well. We were to share the fees for the adventure. Sounded like such a great deal, until it came back to bite us.

You know something is wrong when you see majestic sights and can’t appreciate them. We were willing to overlook the fact that she didn’t put on deodorant or wash her teeth. We could understand. In the grand scheme of things, it was pretty minor. Then she became a back seat driver, criticising without end how I drove or giving wrong directions about places she didn’t even know. But, I took a deep breath and let it slide.

The last straw came when she took the rental car and crashed it. I don’t know how she managed such a feat as we were in a small village, with very little traffic (her version of the events changed so many times I lost counts) and I suspect she went off road on a beach with it. How often in retrospect have I wished that she told us she wasn’t able to drive or wasn’t comfortable at it. I would have dropped her off and picked her back-up. I would have preferred that.

But the deed was done, she had crashed the car and we now had to pay the fees, good thing we had contracted the insurance. Now, somehow, she figured that, even if we were not in the car when she did whatever she did, we should all separate the costs of her little night adventure.

Needless to say, the road trip was ruined at that point. In the car, she kept going on about how she thought it was unfair she should pay for her own accident. Now don’t get me wrong, if we had been there in the car with her and a kangaroo had jumped on the road in front of her, I would have helped pay for that. Yet, I refused to pay for her careless used of rental property. Just like if I had gotten a speeding ticket, I would have taken full responsibility for it.

Now tension were running high and I realized that this girl would single-handedly destroy every single good memory of my stay in Tasmania. That’s when I took the decision to severe the link. I was ready to handle the final bill, which hopefully will be the insurance deductible of $350, just to have M and A out of my sight. I didn’t expect anything less from them : they took the bailout, left the full responsibility of their accident to me and headed out with a smile of relief on their face. To be honest, I am relieved as well, I would never count anyone of such poor character among my friends. 

There are a few principles in life I live by, one of them is to know when to cut your losses, and there was still too much for me to lose with them around. It was time for me to call it quit, even if I was going to be poorer during my trip because of it.

The girl didn’t have enough class to at least help pay for the fees or handle the insurance claim, she took the bailout and flew. At least I can console myself thinking she is no longer polluting my air, but I can’t help pity the poor chap who will encounter her next.

So, how much would I be willing to pay to get rid of somebody? $350.