The topic at the Douglas household is honesty, specifically when is it acceptable, as asked by Chip of Steve. It seems some of Chip's classmates have learned that the lady who collects payment for hot lunches at school doesn't pay close attention and lets some people slip past her without paying, and the boys are excited to suddenly have extra money to spend, at the rate of 50¢ a day.
Chip in the span of one day has seen his brother Robbie happy that the grocer gave him more trading stamps than he should have, with Bub approving, saying, "half the time he doesn't give us as many as we are supposed to get, so it all evens out. He has also seen Bub cheating-when playing solitaire, and his father lying to a friendly neighbor to avoid having to meet another of her lady friends, as she is on a mission to find a wife for Steve.
Steve's answer to Chip is general advice about how some matters are designed not to hurt other people's feelings and that is not the same as taking things you don't deserve, but he is too vague about it, telling Chip that a sort-of bell would go off in his head if he is about to do something wrong.
Chip goes to school the next day and is contemplating copying his friends to steal his lunch, unless he "hears" this bell in his head. In effect, he does, as he sees a chance to just walk on by while the lunch lady steps away from her cash register, but both he and Ernie feel it is wrong, so they step back up to the register and happily pay.
We later hear that the lunch lady wasn't ignorant. She knew what the boys were doing but wanted to give them a chance to turn honest. Finally, she alerted someone and they were caught.
Meanwhile, Steve finds a bell going off in his head twice. First is at the end of a luncheon with two friends, where just after he gives the waiter his credit card to charge the "business" lunch so he can have a receipt to claim it on his income tax, he switches to pay cash, indicating he won't be claiming this lunch on his taxes. (To me, it would seem a receipt paid by cash or credit would not make any difference with the IRS; the question is whether it was a business lunch or not. Perhaps there is just something I don't know about here.) The second dilemma is more confusing to me. Outside the restaurant, when Steve is apparently about to get in his car and go back to work, he spots a police chalk mark on his tire, knowing his car has been marked by the meter maid and that he was there more than 45 minutes. Since he is about to leave, I would think he'd just get in the car and leave. If he hasn't already received a ticket, he is lucky. Nobody considers that dishonest.
If he is driving home and just as he goes through an intersection where there are no other cars around, if he realizes he just missed a stop sign, he would not stop, wait for a police car to come around and then go through the intersection again just to get a ticket because he "got away" with it before-would he?
Instead, he wipes away the chalk mark, suggesting he is going to leave his car there for an indefinite period longer, and wants the meter maid to give him a ticket the next time she comes by. Then his conscience directs him to borrow a piece of chalk from the restaurant's menu board inside and he remarks the maid's chalk mark, as though he now wants to leave his car there until she returns. He is caught by the meter maid, who, after he explains, does believe his crazy story about putting the chalk mark back, and gives him a ticket anyhow.
Back at home he readily agrees to meet the neighbor's friend, who is clearly unattractive and who seems to have the personality of a ferret when she meets his family. Steve happily will take her out to dinner as our story ends.
The basic message was a good one, with everyone "shaping up" once honesty is called to their attention. But Steve's parking violation guilt just doesn't make much sense, figuring he was about to go back to work in his car. He also didn't appear to even check his windshield to see if he had been ticketed already, before going to remark the chalk line on his tire.
It's the lunch lady's conduct that makes absolutely no sense. She pretended to not notice boys just walking past without paying, letting them steal for several days before doing anything. In a school with, presumably 100 or more students getting hot lunches, she should have realized that letting some people get away with theft is only going to lead to others figuring they can do the same thing. She was making it easy for them to steal, making them think she was inept, tempting them to become dishonest instead of doing the right thing. Letting them get away with it, even for just a few days, was a really dumb idea of hers.
I would have liked Steve to be more direct with Chip, possibly with some version of Lou Holtz's saying, "God doesn't grade on a curve. Do right at all times." He needed to ask Chip, "Is stealing only wrong if you get caught?" Perhaps adding in something about how it's not the amount that makes it wrong, it's the act. Instead, Chip went off not really having a clear concept of what he should do. Guess this was an episode of "Father Doesn't Always Know Best."
When you add in the nonsense with the meter maid, this episode was one of the weakest-a 2.
Chip in the span of one day has seen his brother Robbie happy that the grocer gave him more trading stamps than he should have, with Bub approving, saying, "half the time he doesn't give us as many as we are supposed to get, so it all evens out. He has also seen Bub cheating-when playing solitaire, and his father lying to a friendly neighbor to avoid having to meet another of her lady friends, as she is on a mission to find a wife for Steve.
Steve's answer to Chip is general advice about how some matters are designed not to hurt other people's feelings and that is not the same as taking things you don't deserve, but he is too vague about it, telling Chip that a sort-of bell would go off in his head if he is about to do something wrong.
Chip goes to school the next day and is contemplating copying his friends to steal his lunch, unless he "hears" this bell in his head. In effect, he does, as he sees a chance to just walk on by while the lunch lady steps away from her cash register, but both he and Ernie feel it is wrong, so they step back up to the register and happily pay.
We later hear that the lunch lady wasn't ignorant. She knew what the boys were doing but wanted to give them a chance to turn honest. Finally, she alerted someone and they were caught.
Meanwhile, Steve finds a bell going off in his head twice. First is at the end of a luncheon with two friends, where just after he gives the waiter his credit card to charge the "business" lunch so he can have a receipt to claim it on his income tax, he switches to pay cash, indicating he won't be claiming this lunch on his taxes. (To me, it would seem a receipt paid by cash or credit would not make any difference with the IRS; the question is whether it was a business lunch or not. Perhaps there is just something I don't know about here.) The second dilemma is more confusing to me. Outside the restaurant, when Steve is apparently about to get in his car and go back to work, he spots a police chalk mark on his tire, knowing his car has been marked by the meter maid and that he was there more than 45 minutes. Since he is about to leave, I would think he'd just get in the car and leave. If he hasn't already received a ticket, he is lucky. Nobody considers that dishonest.
If he is driving home and just as he goes through an intersection where there are no other cars around, if he realizes he just missed a stop sign, he would not stop, wait for a police car to come around and then go through the intersection again just to get a ticket because he "got away" with it before-would he?
Instead, he wipes away the chalk mark, suggesting he is going to leave his car there for an indefinite period longer, and wants the meter maid to give him a ticket the next time she comes by. Then his conscience directs him to borrow a piece of chalk from the restaurant's menu board inside and he remarks the maid's chalk mark, as though he now wants to leave his car there until she returns. He is caught by the meter maid, who, after he explains, does believe his crazy story about putting the chalk mark back, and gives him a ticket anyhow.
Back at home he readily agrees to meet the neighbor's friend, who is clearly unattractive and who seems to have the personality of a ferret when she meets his family. Steve happily will take her out to dinner as our story ends.
The basic message was a good one, with everyone "shaping up" once honesty is called to their attention. But Steve's parking violation guilt just doesn't make much sense, figuring he was about to go back to work in his car. He also didn't appear to even check his windshield to see if he had been ticketed already, before going to remark the chalk line on his tire.
It's the lunch lady's conduct that makes absolutely no sense. She pretended to not notice boys just walking past without paying, letting them steal for several days before doing anything. In a school with, presumably 100 or more students getting hot lunches, she should have realized that letting some people get away with theft is only going to lead to others figuring they can do the same thing. She was making it easy for them to steal, making them think she was inept, tempting them to become dishonest instead of doing the right thing. Letting them get away with it, even for just a few days, was a really dumb idea of hers.
I would have liked Steve to be more direct with Chip, possibly with some version of Lou Holtz's saying, "God doesn't grade on a curve. Do right at all times." He needed to ask Chip, "Is stealing only wrong if you get caught?" Perhaps adding in something about how it's not the amount that makes it wrong, it's the act. Instead, Chip went off not really having a clear concept of what he should do. Guess this was an episode of "Father Doesn't Always Know Best."
When you add in the nonsense with the meter maid, this episode was one of the weakest-a 2.
