January 12, 2008

Today Jason returned a book to me that I had lent him some weeks ago. As I moved to put the book away for safe keeping, Ty tried to take it off my hands because he hadn’t yet read it and I had recommended a while ago that he do just that. But I wouldn’t allow him to, stating simply that “I needed it for something first”, which wasn’t entirely false (I needed to copy a quote out of it to add to this very website) but still a rather shady explanation. This is the real reason I wouldn’t give up the goods.

As Jason handed the book to me, I spotted a piece of white paper peaking out the side of it just enough to be noticed. My first thought was that it was probably just a makeshift bookmark. But then the fact that I do actually know Jason dawned on me and I remembered three things. The first is that I’ve always known Jason to have a pen on him because he is, I believe, at heart a prevalent note taker. The second was that he’s just absent minded enough not to have noticed the paper sticking out when he’d handed it to me and forgetful enough not to even remember putting it there in the first place. The third is that Jason’s literary mind is amazingly sharp and quite possibly far superior to my own, so if this paper did in fact contain notes that he’d taken, I absolutely wanted to know what they were; whether they were related to the book I’d given him (which is one of my absolute favorites) or not.

So I waited until he turned his attention away from me and quickly opened the book to where the paper stuck out to see if it had any writing on it. It did. I then promptly closed the book, and stuck it in my back pocket so I could join the rest of the band in getting equipment out of the closet for practice, calmly and casually without drawing any kind of suspicion, which wasn’t very hard to do being that all I’d effectively done was put a book in my pocket.

I realize that what I did was dishonest and even distasteful on some level, but you have to understand that my brand of ethics is one that is based on the foundation of spontaneity, which means that at any given time I can legitimately justify (to myself) any decision that I make.

To make up for my act of immorality I made a promise to my better self that when I did read the piece of paper, if I came across anything that indicated anything personal or private, I would immediately fold it up and put it away. I did not. Still and all I think an apology is unquestionably in order.

Sorry J.