"We ask you not to give."

"We ran out on the peppermint," said the man mixing drinks in the Starbucks on Worth & Lafayette. "It was cheating on us," you said to me out of the side of your mouth. The bobby pins dropped into your upturned hand.

"It's hard to catch a fish," a mother told her child, "because the fish want to be free." They were peering into the pond behind the Audubon House in Prospect Park.
 
Aggravated harassment sounds like harassment you engage in when you are aggravated. No doubt you would be aggravated if you were a stowaway in some gentleman's checked bag. And if that gentleman always ordered first and rang twice. And if he said, "Asked and answered," when you asked him why or why not.

With stilted intonation, the voice of the MTA public service announcement implores, "Kindness is contagious, and it begins with you. We ask you not to give."