Cynthia and George went shopping together at Wal-Mart. “I need a water dispenser for my office,” Cynthia told George.

“What do you mean by water dispenser?” George asked.

“You know, one of those things that they put the big five-gallon jug upside down into. Then you can pour yourself cold water using the blue handle, or hot water using the red handle,” Cynthia said.

George tried to tell her that she had too few clients coming to her office to need such a dispenser. He told her to buy a case of bottled water. She could keep the bottles cold in the office refrigerator. Plus, she had a stove and a coffeemaker in her office, so she could use either of them to produce hot water for her clients or herself.

“A contract with a water company is going to cost you at least $30 a month,” he argued. “And maybe you won’t even be consuming that much water a month. Why don’t you wait a few months and see how many clients you get and then decide if a water dispenser is absolutely necessary? If it is, buy it then. There’s no rush to buy it now.”

In addition, he argued, the trunk of her car was too small for the dispenser to fit into. Nor would it fit into her back seat. So, “end of argument,” he concluded. They left Wal-Mart. Cynthia dropped George off at his place, and then drove back to Wal-Mart. The dispenser was in a box that was almost the size of Cynthia, but she carted it out to the parking lot and managed, somehow, to get it into her trunk.

That night, when George called, he asked, “You didn’t go back to Wal-Mart and buy that thing, did you?”

“Of course not!” she told him.