MOLI VIEW™

It's Holy Thursday, the day Jesus washed the feet of all the apostles at the Last Supper. That's one of my favorite stories from the Bible. Although I'm a nonbeliever, a lot of the lessons I learned in parochial school have stuck with me. Like tithing: A good Catholic is supposed to give 10 percent of her income to the Church. But what about a bad Catholic?

Even though I don't believe there's necessarily any terrible punishment waiting for me if I don't, I still feel like I should be giving a chunk of my income — such as it is — away. A few years ago, maybe four or five now, I gave a significant portion of that chunk to my local public radio station. This isn't really even charity. I listen to National Public Radio several hours a week, so I figured I should pony up at least as much as I do for satellite TV and DSL. In fact, I gave so much I had to spread it out over the year, in monthly payments, just like I do for those services.

My little piece of heaven? A CD of the best of This American Life, my favorite NPR show — you know, the one a character on The OC described as "that show where they pretend that ordinary people's lives are so interesting, bleech!" I love the show, but I can't always catch it. I really wanted that CD.

And I never got it. Turns out, at least at my local station, at that time, you didn't get any of the gifts if your pledge was spread out. Maybe a bunch of scheming NPR listeners had figured out the scam of pledging in monthly payments, getting the free gift, then canceling. I can only guess. But when the next year came around and I called to make a monthly pledge again, I inquired about the gift and was told I couldn't have it.

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