Dubai

“Hello. I want to get a refund on this Shiny.”
“We don’t give refunds.”
“Well, I want one. It’s no good.”
“No good? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not shiny anymore. It was just painted with an incredibly thin layer of shiny stuff. It’s all dull underneath and my kids have become ill playing with it.”
“We never told you it was shiny all the way through!”
“You said it was iconic and dared me to dream of a new future.”
“That was our advertising agency. They made us say that.”
“You didn’t mean it?”
“Yes! No. Well, we meant it at the time.”
“At the time you painted this Shiny with a thin layer of cheap paint that you knew would wear off.”
“Well, yes. But we didn’t make you buy it.”
“You promised it would stay Shiny!”
“We didn’t! We just showed you what it would be like if it stayed Shiny!”
“You didn’t tell me it wouldn’t stay shiny and that it would make my family ill. And you didn’t tell me I’d have to pay lots of extra money every year, either.”
“You didn’t ask. Anyway, nobody else is complaining!”
“What about all the people holding broken Shinys in the queue behind me?”
“They’re not complaining. They’re queuing for identity cards.”
“I want a refund.”
“Look. If you promise to shut up about your damn Shiny and causing trouble with the people behind you, we’ll re-spray your Shiny.”
“But it’ll just wear off again!”
“No it won’t. We’ve got a new type of paint. It stays Shiny for ever.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“How can I trust you?”
“We’ve got a regulator now. We were a free market laissez faire economy before. Now we’re a regulated market. You can trust us.”
“Oh, OK then. I’ll go for the respray.”
“Cool. Great. When do you want to give us your kidney?”
“My kidney?”
“Sure.”
“But why should I give you my kidney?”
“Well, dah, numbnut! You didn’t think Shiny resprays were free did you?”
“But you just said you’d respray my Shiny if I didn’t make trouble!”
“We changed our mind on account of the global recession.”