Ring, ring.
"Hello, Gia. This is Elsa. I need to borrow your Lie Detector handbag.''
"My what?''
"Don't pretend you don't know what I am talking about. The bag you bought at El Alligator. You have no secrets on Facebook, you know.''
This is a true story, you cynics and opposers out there.
My friend Gia, a stylish activist sort of woman, who wears Claudia Pegus designs and always has her nails airbrushed, went into El Alligator in the mall. You know the place–it has the most head-turning collection of leather handbags in the country. She chooses a bag that costs $1,837 (because she was swooning under the aroma of luxurious leather) but the cashier got her decimal point in the wrong place and debited Gia's account $18.37.
What did Gia do? What would you do?
A. Own up and rectify the mistake by paying the true amount?
B. Say "Not my fault the cashier fell asleep when they were teaching decimals in primary school.''
C. Go back and correct the error but demand a discount for your wasted time?
Gia did what Gia was born to do: the right thing. And she did it with a smile too. (She still hasn't agreed to lend me the bag, though.) The only thing more surprising than what Gia did is that we are surprised someone would do that. Has honesty become old-fashioned?
To test your own honest metre, here is a quiz. No peeking at the answers until the end.
You spend a week's vacation in a nice hotel in Barbados. When you get home, you realise you accidentally packed a small hand towel from the hotel in your suitcase. What do you do?
A. Mail it back at your own expense.
B. Give it away to a homeless person.
C. Put in the guest bedroom with the sheets, lamp and coffee machine that accidentally fell into your carry-on.
You come upon a firetruck lying at the bottom of a precipice.
A. You call up your cousins Ray Ray and Boom Boom who call their brethren and they scrap it out bolt by bolt and sell to scrapyards and you all hand over the money to the Stabilisation Fund.
B. You leave it there.
C. You call up your cousins Ray Ray and Boom Boom who call their brethren and so on but you split up the proceeds among yourselves.
Think Denzel Washington in Pelham 163. You are the head of a department that is inviting tenders for equipment. You choose the best supplier with the lowest bid. To make sure you make the right choice, someone leaves an envelope with a "gift'' on your desk.
A. You immediately return it with a stern rebuke, and report the incident to the CEO; your pastor; the Integrity Commission; the police; and the professor who taught you ethics at university.
B. You make a donation to your favourite charity.
C. You change your name to Charity.
You are enrolled at the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland. You visit the concession stand, stocked with gum, candy, fruit, to discover it operates on an honour system. You are supposed to take what you want and just leave the money in a box.
A. You take what you need and leave the change because you are proud to be part of an honesty code.
B. You e-mail a picture back home to all your friends who just won't believe it.
C. You faint.
Answers: If you answer mostly A's, you are going straight to heaven, you have no friends any more, and you will never get voted into office as long as you are alive on earth.
If you answer mostly B's, you are more lazy than dishonest.
If you answer mostly C's, you know by heart the visiting hours at every prison in the country.