My best friend Laura.

And a friend’s a friend forevs.

.so as you can see…
she said, not coming up for breath,

…this is the best investment opportunity you’re going to have in front of you this year. And -

- I cut her off, wanting to preserve her oxygen supply running dangerously low after a courageous verbal run that ran roughly as long as an Ayn Rand hero monologue.

Wow.
I said.
That’s a big statement. Best investment I could find this year?

Absolutely.
she said with the conviction of female Abe Lincoln.
So let’s do this: let me get you signed up for a trial that will be automatically billed so you won’t even have to worry about it every month.

Whoa.
I said.
It’s like the best investment, plus it just keeps on investing my money and I don’t even have to worry about paying for it every month?

Absolutely.
she said.
We take care of all of that. MasterCard or Visa?

It really does sound incredible.
I said.
Almost too good to be true. But obviously completely true. Pretty cool that I don’t even have to worry about giving you my money!

Sorry!
I interrupted myself.
Not give you my money. Paying you my money so you can make me more money.

Absolutely,
she said with Morgan Freeman confidence.
And if you you’re not completely happy, then we can part as friends.

Let me get this straight,
I said:
If I’m not completely happy after giving you my credit card info for the investment - which obviously I’ll be happy - but on the off-chance that I’m not, I can get my money back and we’ll part as friends?

Absolutely,
she said emphatically.
In that case, we can part as friends. Now which card are we using?

At this point, most of my irrational fears had been successfully answered, but I wanted confirmation on one final thing.

So, I said:
It’s pretty much a win-win for me. Option A, I do this investment and pay you to make me a bunch of money. Or Option B, I’m like, only 99% happy with it so I decide to cancel and have you delete all my credit info and refund my money, and on top of that, we part as friends. How is there a losing option in this scenario?

Absolutely.
she said.
If you’re not completely happy, we part as friends.

Let’s get this going, Laura.
I said,
My Amex black card number is 43 -

- and then the most horrible thing happened.

Click.

I lost the connection. I must have inadvertently hit the End Call button on my phone, and I got just a dead number when I tried back. Apparently I didn’t move fast enough on my investment opportunity. Sad.

But even more sad?

I lost a friend.

I just wanted to be able to part as friends.

Farewell, my old friend. Until next time.