Anecdote of something that never happens, where the value of "never" includes "at least once". A long time ago, when a Phase I SBIR was a lot of money to a tin

Anecdote of something that never happens, where the value of "never" includes "at least once". A long time ago, when a Phase I SBIR was a lot of money to a tiny company, we got one and spent 6 months on it only to find that the department which was supposed to accept the report had been organized away. After a year of trying to get someone to sign off on paying us we gave up. Five years after the money was to be paid, out of the blue we got an panicked call from an accountant that we had to accept the money right now! Seems it was going to get returned to congress for being unused for too long and that is bad form. But that was the '90s. Don't make your plans based on that.