“That seems like a lot of money,” my wife said.

We looked at each other: we’re in the top .001 percent. Why even discuss whether to give money to a noble cause? Still, there are 100-something thousand people who have even more money. Why haven’t they fixed the historic building?

Lunch was at a reasonable place in my neighborhood. At least, I think it was reasonable. We talked about the historic building. We talked about my childhood. Yes, we talked about his daughter, and then for some reason we ended up talking about gay marriage, a noble cause to which I’ve given about what we paid for lunch.

And then the guy asked me for five million dollars.

I had my checkbook with me, but I never brought it out. I felt suddenly as if someone had proposed marriage and I’d countered with an offer of a beer. I stuttered something. He explained that I wouldn’t have to give all of it at once. I stuttered something else, and we talked about gay marriage a little more, and then I went home and lay down on the rug, which is what I do when things like this come up.

It’s not the first time. People know I have a lot of money — there’s no way to hide it, and I’m irritated by those people who have a lot of money but pretend they don’t have a lot of money, not really, not when you compare them to some other people. But still, I don’t have all the money. My cousin recently assumed out loud that I’d been paid $100 million by a movie studio, even after he knew that the movie in question cost about $150 million to make. I was once referred to, in passing and not sarcastically, as a trillionaire. And a friend estimated that my home is worth $20 million, which it would be, if after lunch I lay down on a stack of gold bars instead of a rug.

Still, though, it’s a nice rug. If the rug cost your annual salary, and I were a noble cause, I wouldn’t ask you for money, because you wouldn’t have any to give. Your income would, however, still be in the top 15 percent in the world. This is why, maybe, there are so many noble causes and so few of them are well financed: we all want other people to write the checks — they’re richer than we are. I wrote the guy a check anyway, of course, and it was for a lot of money. At least, I think it was a lot of money. You’d have to ask those other people, the hundred thousand who make more than I do and the 60 million who make more than I gave to restore the historic building: isn’t this a lot of money? Then why does it feel as if I bought him a beer?