I wanted to go to law school. I didn't have the money and would have qualified for a scholarship.
But my father told me that, no, he wanted to pay for my tuition with no expectation of a loan.
I took him at his word. I relied on him and didn't apply for a scholarship.
I studied for the LSATs in 6 weeks and made a respectable score on the first try. Three weeks later, I was admitted to law school.
Three weeks before the beginning of school, things changed.
I was working as a medical assistant at my father's doctor's office. And there was an internal squabble among coworkers which didn't involve me at all. My father was unable to address the strife and looked for a scapegoat: ME.
He insisted that I join him for dinner in a restaurant where he concocted a fable that because of me, half his staff was going to quit. And because they were going to quit, he was going to prematurely retire. And because he was going to prematurely retire, no money for tuition for law school. And how'd you like them apples?
He was expecting me to believe him. He was expecting me to break down in a public restaurant and humiliate myself. He was expecting me to beg him to reconsider. He was expecting me to return to the doctor's office and "fix it".
None of the above.
Like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, it was "You know, Bill, there's one thing I learned in all my years. Sometimes you just gotta say, 'What the fuck, make your move.'" So I leaned back in my chair, took a sip of wine, looked him in the eye, and told him, "Well, I guess that's entirely up to you."
Immediately deflated, he murmured, "Damned right."
We separately left the restaurant.
I waited two weeks and he called me to pick up the tuition check.
That's how you do it.
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