Last evening, I stayed late after work to meet with a student and discuss a matter involving academic dishonesty. I spent 30 minutes giving a home-spun lesson on integrity. It included a significant story from my life wherein I resigned my employment due to ethical issues, and other such stuff. After we concluded, I rushed off from the University to pick up several pizzas for dinner. It was 6pm and a significant windstorm was bringing in an early-evening winter storm. As I arrived at Pizza Hut and was exiting my vehicle, a gust of wind caught hold of my opened door and swung it into the Tacoma truck parked beside me.
We have all had the unpleasant experience of arriving at our vehicle to find a small door-ding freshly implanted in the side without a word from the perpetrator. How we wish that the guilty party would have simply left a message! Sometimes, its the gesture of honesty for which our soul yearns, rather than the chance to get an entire paint-job done on one side of our vehicle.
Well . . . like many who have become perpetrators of this innocent crime, my mind immediately filled with all the reasons to excuse myself from properly taking responsibility. I immediately tried to wipe the scratch off with my thumb. I retrieved a old blanket from my trunk and aggressively wiped the slight scratch. Although most of it disappeared, it was still apparent. As I walked towards the entrance to Pizza Hut, my mind was filled with a myriad of emotions: "It's so small that I won't need to mention it. Anyways, this was an accident and not your fault. There's a lot of other vehicles in the parking lot and I won't be able to find the owner of this one, so just let it go. You're making too much of a little thing."
As I entered through the first of the two doors that provide entrance into the restaurant, I turned around and saw placed on the cab of the pickup that familiar emblem denoting a pizza delivery truck. I was further indicted by this fact since any excuse to avoid admitting responsibility was no longer available. As I entered through the second door into the eating establishment, my mind returned to the lesson I had taught just moments before in my office to a young student, and my fearful heart melted away. I knew then, that, whatever the cost, I must find the owner of the truck.
I began to ask around. No one behind the counter knew who the owner might be. A young woman said she would go into the back of the restaurant to ask around. After 3-4 minutes she returned with a young man who confirmed that he was the truck's owner. We exchanged greetings and I invited him to accompany me out to his truck that I might show him what I had done. When he looked at the small scratch, he said, "It's okay. It's not very big." I concurred that it wasn't. However, I then invited him to step back and look at the ding from a slight angle. He did so, and I pointed out that he would be able to see an ever so slight dent that accompanied the scratch. "Hmmm, yes I can", he continued, "but it's okay." Not yet satisfied with my confession, I handed him my business card. You see, I was twice his age. I was dressed in a full, dark suit, white shirt, and tie. He was dressed in Levis and tennis shoes. He was somewhat timid and I am often overbearing. We were on uneven playing fields--His environment and this circumstance was far too intimidating for him to say anything other than to accept what had happened. I turned to him and said: "If you ever change your mind concerning what you would like to see done in regards to this incident, you have my business card. Please call me."
I arrived home with the pizzas, breadsticks, and soda just in time to save two of my favorite girls--my wife and youngest daughter--from near starvation. The three of us sat around the table eating dinner and hearing another lesson taught by me that honesty matters . . . even in little things.
The irony of a lesson on integrity is that you are only a teacher when you live it. Otherwise, you remain a professor . . . drawing near to the principle with your lips, but having a heart removed far from it.
