Tell me one thing ---- if someone appears at your doorstep and says he is trying to sell ice-cream to finance his studies, what would you think? Hmm...hardworking; industrious; poor thing. Yeah, give me a box of ice-cream!

Except for one thing.......it costs $10 for 5-6 sticks of ice-cream that is of poor quality (not branded) and likely to be manufactured locally. Singaporeans know this ice-cream as similar to 'Potong'.

Whoa! $10 for that? Hey wait a minute! NTUC and Sheng Siong (cheapest supermarkets around town) sell branded stuff for half the price! To put it simply, I extended my sympathies to the poor chap and basically gave him a 1 minute lecture on how he was simply just pricing himself out of the market....even if it was for charity. Yes, he may be really in need of the cash. But he needs to know that the supplier who is selling him the ice-cream is probably ripping him off! (And yes, there is a van waiting downstairs to top up his styrofoam box of ice-cream...still full when I last peeked into it)

Maybe this is a one off case, you might say?

Direct your attention to young paraplegic man a bottom of escalator at Bras Basah Complex. I have nothing against the physically and mentally challenged. In fact, our society should do much more to level the playing field for them.

Back to young paraplegic man.

I first met him a year back and he was selling laser pointers (they sell for less than $2 in the market). I took pity on him and asked him for the price. He replied $8 for 1. I mentioned that it was too expensive and walked on.

2 months ago, I bumped into him and saw that he was selling toothbrushes. OK, I thought, give it another go. Toothbrushes, I could use. Now these toothbrushes were the Oral B kind that cost about $1-$2 per toothbrush...the budget kind. How much was his asking price? $8.

I replied that I really wanted to help him but the price quoted was over priced. Perhaps, he was coerced into selling at that price. Perhaps, he did not have baisc marketing sense. And while he needed the money more than I did, there is a fine line between charity and being exorbitant.

And so begs the question ----- Is charity, giving even if it is an exorbitant amount for the value of the service or product exchanged? Come to think of it, some of us would have probably given him $10 if he did not provide a product in return but instead, outright begged.

Maybe an aunty who sells tissue paper in Jurong East St 31 Blk 347 (which by the way, has a coffee shop that sells the best Mee Hoon Kway in town) has the answer. She comes round every Sat and Sun during b'fast to sell her tissues. What's the market rate for 3 packets of tissues? $1 for 3 packets. Standard rate. She sells hers for only $0.50. And everytime customers want to pay her the full $1, she will rummage through her pouch to return the change. She insists on returning the change at every instance. 

When we give to charity, should we do it within our comfort zone or beyond our comfort zone? Most of us will pay $1 for 3 packets of tissue paper even though we know we are probably paying 4 times the amount when bought in bulk. But would we pay $8 for a toothbrush, knowing that we can get it at $2 ? This also works out to be 4 times the price when bought at the supermarket.

Can charity make demands? Even more so when it comes across as exorbitant?

Or does charity understand that it is just that --- Charity, where no one owes her anything?

My wrist has gone numb from typing.....