The Book of Ashes

The Honesty System 11:36AM

The Honesty System

I'm talking about piracy, going back to a shop to pay for something they left off the bill or not, keeping someone elses money that you saw them drop but they didn't. We each have our own Honesty System. Certain rules that we base certain descisions in life on. Mine are quite straight forward. To begin with there are the given's...

• I will pickup and return money to someone if I see them drop it, even if I have to run the block to catch up with them.


• If I don't see who dropped it, I keep it (money under $20, over that I deliberate over taking it to the police station or not).


• Any thing else found thats personal or worth something (keys, wallet, cards, etc) I take to the police station without removing anything.


• I will never steal anything, even ""borrowing"" off friends. I always return stuff.


• I always pay back debts and try to make a concious effort to remember these and pay them back AS SOON AS I CAN. Exception: Sometimes I forget (honest mistake, I will always make it up when reminded).


• I keep a tab of hows shouted me what and feel I owe them (roughly) for that amount, shouting them back next chance I get.

Then theres the not so clear cut...

• Music. I will take illegal copies of CDs or MP3s but ONLY if I want to trial the CD or I wouldn't have purchased the CD if I couldn't have pirated it. If I like something enough then I buy it but I never buy CDs for only a couple of songs so I feel justified in pirating those one or two songs.


• Software. I usually buy a legit copy of my operating system then upgrade to a pirated version (mostly OK by me) but all other software I illegally pirate like nothing else. No restrictions. I am bad in this respect.

Apparently repeatedly applying plasters to your hand is as good as waxing. I have only a few hairs left on my hand around the area where my stictches are from the repeated removal of sticking plasters. On the good side it doesn't hurt so much now to remove them.