Honest, or just stupid?

From the AP
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We've all been faced with an ethical/moral/financial choice that defines where we stand among the planet's citizenry: among the 1 percent who do what's right, or the 99 percent who take advantage of situations whenever we can. Managing one's finances is tough enough, after all, without being scrupulously honest.

Remember the extra $1 in change that inexperienced cashier gave you by mistake? What'd you do with it? Heh heh -- thought so.

John Gedge may by different from most people. The 84-year-old Englishman received a speeding ticket when visiting Philadelphia in 1954. He promised the officer who stopped him that he would mail in payment of his $15 fine. He did so, only 52 years late. He said the matter slipped his mind when he returned home, but he found the unpaid citation recently in the pocket of an old coat. He mailed a five-pound note to officials in Philadelphia.

"I thought, 'Blimey, I've got to pay, that's it,' " Mr. Gedge, now a nursing home resident, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Englishmen pay their debts. ... I had the fiver to do it. And I'm very happy I did."

The five-pound note is worth only $9 in today's dollars, not $15, but no one in Philadelphia seems troubled by that. Nor do they seem astonished that a man might still be using a coat that is at least 52 years old.

The joke's on New York

If you run into a man named Frank Donaldson, try making a citizen's arrest and hauling him into the sheriff's office like some Wild West bounty hunter. New York state's Department of Motor Vehicles notified the Toronto man in 2001 that he owed $75 for a speeding ticket he received 16 years earlier.

Unlike John Gedge, Mr. Donaldson chose to make light about the matter, instead of immediately atoning for his misdeed. This could be an Ontarian trait, with Mr. Donaldson trying to draw a laugh as he imagined how great comedians from his province such as Jim Carrey, Mike Myers and John Candy and fellow "SCTV" alums would have handled the situation. Mr. Donaldson said of his 1985 international crime spree, highlighted by the ticket received on a trip to Florida with his girlfriend: "I'm thinking of not paying. I'm one of 'America's Most Wanted' -- I think I'll get surgery to change my face." He jested that he might dress as a woman the next time he attempted a border crossing, to avoid detection by New York authorities.

Last that we know, Mr. Donaldson still hasn't paid that ticket. Feel free to nab him if you see him. And tell him as well that you don't think Martin Short is all that funny.

Wise men say ...

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made." -- Groucho Marx.

"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and very few by deceit." -- Noel Coward.

"If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve." -- Georg Lichtenberg

Throw the book at her

No one may be more familiar with old debts than your friendly neighborhood librarian. And sometimes she gets really fed up with them, pushing the spectacles back on her nose and tsk-tsking while she does the books and realizes every Dick, Jane and Spot in the area is a scofflaw possessing overdue books. So she does the only thing a good librarian would in such situations: She tries to throw delinquent borrowers in jail.

A McKees Rocks woman faced criminal charges in 1996 from the Dormont Library, which claimed she owed $172.58 for a book checked out in 1994, "Rocky's Book of Sportsmanship." She paid enough money to stay out of jail when the constables showed up, and then had the charges thrown out in court. A Clearwater, Fla., woman wasn't so lucky in 1999, and spent a night locked up for holding onto seven library books she took out to read to her 2-year-old son. (We imagine he was placed on probation, with a stiff warning to steer clear of "Goodnight Moon" until he straightened out.)

In Pennsylvania, failure to return library materials is a crime punishable by up to 10 days in jail, although each library has its own policy on how far to go. Usually, warnings are sufficient, especially if they come from a magistrate, but librarians know they sometimes have to be as tough as reading James Joyce. "When you take this job of librarian, you have to be willing to step up to the plate and be ready to enforce things," the Dormont librarian, no relation to Luca Brasi of "The Godfather," told the Post-Gazette in 2002.

Patience pays off ... sometimes

The smart thing for deadbeat procrastinators to do is wait for someone to offer them amnesty, whether they're potential targets of librarians, state tax agents or just about anyone except for the local loan shark.

A constituent of the Chattahoochee Valley Regional Library System in Mississippi waited 45 years before returning "Zeb Pike: Boy Traveler" during the library system's annual Amnesty Week in 2003. George Clarke said he borrowed the book when he was 12 years old in 1958 and accidentally shelved it among books he owned. At a fine of 10 cents for each day the library is open, he potentially owed $1,600 on the book -- except that the library caps fines at $5 anyway.

Pennsylvania held an amnesty program for delinquent taxpayers the first time in 1995-96, waiving the usual penalties and threats of jail if people and businesses just paid what they owed in the first place. About 35,000 delinquents came out of the woodwork, forking over $93 million to the state. The state hasn't offered the penalty-free alternative since, but feel free to wait, if you're a risk-taker who has other uses for your money for now. But don't stick that extra money in a coat pocket: You might forget about it for 50 years, and find out it's not worth as much later.