Honesty Is The Best...

Here's a life lesson for you. I bought my train ticket in the morning and the guy gave me ten dollars extra in change. And I counted my money, found the extra ten dollar bill, and without vacillating at all I gave it back to the guy. Then I wondered why the hell did I do that? Extra ten bucks.... and this is coming from someone who regularly buys a ticket for two stops but stays on the train five or six stops just to keep the bastards at New Jersey Transit from getting their grubby little claws on my hard-earned cash.

My weakness here is that I'm honest, which isn't nearly as fun or lucrative as duplicity. I wouldn't even try to rationalize keeping the ten bucks ("It's nothing compared to the $180 million mismanaged over the past decade"). I have nothing but contempt for New Jersey Transit; their service is overpriced, unreliable, sporadic, and occasionally rude. They've rigged the game and I'm just out to beat the system. But there's that ridiculous idea that I should do the right thing even if no one benefits. I kind of wish I didn't realize about that extra ten bucks.

And there's the lesson in this experience: always blindly throw your change in your wallet.