This is a Comedy Trope where a character or characters try to buy some item (which is normally at least somewhat expensive), and tries to do so with nothing more than a few pennies of spare change, or lint, or some sort of ineffectual barter. Usually this trope is invoked just after the seller has told the character all he has to offer, all the options and all the flexibility in deal making. Either out of desperation or out of a literal interpretation of the idea of making a deal, the character then makes his own pitch, almost ALWAYS starting with the phrase, "What can I get for..."
Generally, the seller then either kicks them out of the store, or sells them something that wasn't in his list of options he gave before, and the item in question is either of questionable quality or is a poor facsimile of whatever product he was selling.
Not to be confused with lint as an actual, valuable commodity. Compare Wallet Moths, Comically Small Bribe.
Examples:
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Advertising
- In a commercial for the McDonald's Dollar Menu, a guy goes to various places to find out what he can get for a dollar.
- In one radio commercial, a little boy tries to buy a hot dog with a dime. When the counterman gently tells him it's not enough, he says "Oh. [beat]. Never mind the mustard."
- A 2018 advert for Cadbury's Chocolate has a feelgood fuzziness about it, where a little girl is seeking to buy a bar of chocolate for her mother, but only has a few pennies, buttons, gimcrack rings and accessories and other pocket junk. The sweet little girl tentatively offers the miscellaneous pocket junk to an impassive and not especially sympathetic-looking Asian corner-shop owner, leading the viewer to wonder how unsympathetically he will say "no." or "Get out of my shop". But his stony heart is softened, he smiles, then offers up the largest possible bar of chocolate to the little girl in exchange for the crap. Then he calls her back and says "you forgot your change" and returns a toy ring...
- One jewelry-store ad features a young boy giving the clerk a jar full of change to buy something for his mother. The dad pops up behind him, flashing his credit card.
Films — Live-Action
- In the movie of The Little Rascals, the gang tries to buy materials from a lumber yard to rebuild their clubhouse, but run into a small snag- they only have a few dollars (which they assume is more than enough) which is enough for a piece of wood the size of a dollar note. For the lumber required for rebuilding, they need $450.
You know what they say; wood doesn't grow on trees...
- In the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and her Valley Girl friends watch Pike and his buddy deposit a handful of change on the table at a diner and ask if the amount is sufficient for pie.
- In Bubble Boy, as Jimmy tries to get a bus ticket with a small amount of change, the man at the ticket booth tells him to take a step back to show that it's all he could afford with it.
- Silverado: Paden has been robbed, and just walked into town wearing nothing but his underwear, when he sees one of the men who robbed him. He barges into a nearby gun store and tries to buy a gun with the money he has on him, i.e. nothing.
Live-Action TV
- In an homage to the above, the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Two premiere "Anne" showed Buffy working as a waitress; two young runaways who spent all their money on matching tattoos deposit a handful of change on the table and ask if it will get them anything.
- Icarly in "iOwe You" Sam initially and pathetically offers to pay back her debts to Carly and Freddy with fourteen bucks, a AA battery, some string, a fork, and what looked like an olive but was really a bug which she promptly started smashing. Later she gets a job at Chili My Bowl as a more realistic solution.
- Powerpuff: On the day of the fund dispute, the girls' lawyer states that they can receive 5 each from the stash. They initially think it'd be $5 million, then $500 thousand when they reconsider Drake's previous behavior, but are told it's $5000 flat because Drake spent most of the money on failed investments.
- Sesame Street: Elmo is told his food total adds up to “a gazillion dollars” when playing cash register with Gabby. He responds that he has a ‘T-Rex and a Go Fish card.’
- The fourth Series of Top Gear shockingly subverted this trope when one of its presenters Jeremy Clarkson won a cheap car challenge with a car that he bought for one pound.
Music
- In the song "One Meatball", a man has fifteen cents, and buys one meatball at a restaurant. He is refused bread to go with it.
Tabletop Games
- In War Hammer Fantasy, it's stated that Ogres will trade for some very esoteric items, including, in one instance, a skeleton and a pickled orc head.
Webcomics
- Seen in the Brawl in the Family strip where Bowser gets his flying clown car.
- Subverted in Awkward Zombie Tools of the Trade.
- Unsounded: Sette tries, and fails, to barter for a map being modified with a broken pymaric, a cloak clasp and a twig.
- In Yokoka's Quest, when Kalliv reveals a single coin and tries to buy fruit from a market stall with it. The Alt Text a few pages later indicates that he failed to buy anything.
Web Animation
- In the hololive animation "Shark'd," Gawr Gura pays for her trademark shark hoodie with some sand from the beach she washed up on, which the clothing store isn't shown objecting to. She later tries to pay Haachama for a kebab with sand as well, but Haachama slaps Gura with a paper fan hard enough to knock her out.
Western Animation
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang, who only has two copper pieces, tries to haggle with a pirate who is selling a waterbending scroll for 100 gold pieces. He offers one copper piece. Then, okay, how about two copper pieces? (He gets kicked out of the shop.)
- An episode of Beavis and Butt-Head has the two walking into the local Maxi-Mart and asking the clerk how much party stuff they can buy with whatevers in their pockets (a few coins and some lint). The clerk says none, but he gives them some plastic forks and some day old doughnuts (that he picks out of the trash). The duo are satisfied with that, and we actually do see the clerk taking the coins as they leave.
- In an episode of Camp Lazlo, Scoutmaster Lumpus attempts to pay a restaurant bill with the contents of the Bean Scouts' pockets: buttons, lint, string, a frog...
- Family Guy:
- Peter and Lois are stranded in another country without money. They go to the black market to be smuggled back into America, Peter offers to pay for fake passports and transportation with the lint and bits of string he has in his pockets, but the clerk refers him to the sign already posted that they do not accept lint or bits of string as payment.
- In the episode "The Giggity Wife," Quagmire has gotten himself into an Accidental Marriage with an old, washed-up druggie prostitute named Charmise. Lois and Peter invite the couple over for dinner, and Chris throws a $5 at Charmise and asks her to do something to him. She spits in his face.
- Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids In the first episode, the gang decides they want to start a band. They go to a music store, pick out a pile of instruments, hear how much it will all cost, then ask the counterman what they can get for the amount they have. He shows them a single drum mallet. (The rest of the episode shows how they improvised instruments — except for Rudy's guitar — from junkyard stuff, and proceeded to play them on every subsequent episode as well as the opening titles.)
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "The Buck Swaps Here", Bloo wants to buy a statue of a mongoose fighting four cobras, but it costs $300.00. When he asks Mac what he has, Mac tells him that all he has is some green lint and some bluish-gray lint, saying the green lint might be more rare. The vendor overhears and says that purplish lint is the most rare, and he will knock $200.00 off if he had some. Bloo then sees Eduardo holding up a $100 bill he found, tackles him, and takes his $100 bill and some of his fur to pay for the statue. Mac then takes the $100 bill and Eduardo's fur away from Bloo, saying that neither of them belong to him.
- Parodied in Megas XLR. Coop is invited to a robot Fighting arena. His pal Jamie tries to get in on the betting, dumping two coins, two buttons, an old french fry, and some pocket lint as his opening bet. Being that they're in space, the bookie flicks the coins away as worthless, but accepts the trash.
- Spongebob Squarepants: In "Born Again Krabs", the Flying Dutchman offer Mr. Krabs whatever is in his pockets in exchange for Spongebob's soul. This turns out to be 62 cents. Mr. Krabs accepts.
