Finders Keepers?

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On Sunday night I watched a show on Dateline about whether or not children would cheat at their work if they were in a group dynamic and there was a real prize up for grabs.

Most of the kids either did the cheating, or just went along with the cheaters.

I decided to put a couple of scenarios to my Catholic-educated children.

"You're about to take a test and you find the answer key on the teachers desk an hour before, and the teacher isn't around. What are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna' get a hundred," Jake said.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked.

"I'm just being honest," he said. "You told me that honesty is the best policy."

I guess the nuns have eased up a bit since I was a kid.

Yet the Dateline special also threw in an interesting line towards the end of the show.

They said that given the same set of circumstances the parents of the cheating kids would most likely cheat as well. The moral compass has certainly shifted.

Would you cheat to get ahead in your job?

Would you cheat on your spouse if there was no way you'd get busted?

If there was a bank error in your favor would you make the call to get it straightened out?

If you found a wallet with cash and picture identification would you turn it in?

"The correct answer to that one," Sam said. "Is pocket the cash and drop the wallet in a mailbox."

Now I'm sure that my kids were just toying with me.

At least I hope so.

The show went on to say that most kids wouldn't cheat in sports. They would consider that bad sportsmanship.

Weird, huh?

I'm afraid that I'm a lousy cheater. Not that I'm a lousy cheater, but that I'm not real great at it. I've shaved a couple of strokes on a golf course before, right Apes? but that doesn't feel great either. Most of the time I just don't like the rules.

Swing and miss without moving the ball counts as a stroke?

That's just stupid.

But the big issues?

Nah, Sister Henriella beat the shit out of me for good reason. I like to think that if I were in that group I would have spoken up about how what was going down was wrong.

Finding the wallet?

I'd think about the guy's family. I'd call him, I'm sure.

But there are degrees to honesty. A few years ago a woman found more than a thousand dollars in a bank envelope in a shopping cart at Wal-Mart.

She turned the envelope in at the front desk.

I wonder if I would have done that.

Probably not.

I'm just being honest.

And isn't that the best policy?

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