One-Dollar Retainer/Playing With

Basic Trope: A professional accepts a token payment for a service to be rendered later.
 * Straight: Alice charges Bob one dollar before talking about a legal matter, in order to be able to claim "lawyer-client privilege" later.
 * Exaggerated: Alice charges Bob one dollar and goes on to defend him against a murder charge (or something else that would normally cost thousands of dollars).
 * Downplayed: Bob's retainer is just for that one discussion; if he wants help from Alice a second time, he'll need to pay her full rate.
 * Justified: Alice needs the work in order to pad out her resume.
 * Inverted: Alice asks for her usual rate, but Bob pays more for excellent service.
 * Subverted: Alice asks for her usual rate for an entire hour of her time.
 * Double Subverted: ... but then provides more than one hour's worth of work.
 * Parodied:
 * Alice accepts a button and a bit of pocket lint as a retainer.
 * Charlie puts Flo on retainer to make him a sandwich.
 * Zig Zagged: Alice charges her usual fee, but then tears up the bill after Bob pays her one dollar.
 * Averted: Bob pays Alice her usual rates without asking for a discount.
 * Enforced: The writer decides (or is forced) to make Alice look less like a heartless mercenary.
 * Lampshaded: "You have to pay me something, or else we don't have a contract."
 * Invoked: Alice will be kicked into a higher tax bracket if she charges her usual fee and lives in a time and place where the tax rate would apply to all of her earnings, so Bob gets a deep, deep discount.
 * Exploited: Bob pays Alice one dollar, then reveals something that would have changed Alice's life if she wasn't working for Bob.
 * Defied: Alice refuses to take less than what's listed in her usual schedule of fees.
 * Discussed: "Any second now, Bob's going to give Alice a dollar and she'll take the job."
 * Conversed: "How can all those professionals afford to stay in business if they only charge their clients a dollar?"


 * Played For Laughs: "Sorry, but 99 cents isn't enough. Come back when you have a full dollar."
 * Played For Drama: Alice accepts a token retainer just before Bob is murdered, and feels honor-bound to do the work he contracted from her.