Honesty. It's So Overrated.

So my friend just told me a story about taking her daughter to the mall in her husband’s new car. Two hours later they came out of the mall, but my friend couldn’t find her keys. She worried that she had locked the keys in her car, but she shouldn’t have worried . . . .

Because when she came out of the mall she found her keys inside the unlocked car.

THAT SHE HAD LEFT RUNNING!!!

She might as well have put a sign on the brand new car that said, “TAKE ME!”

Do you think she should have told her husband?

This has been a big topic of conversation around our house . . . not my friend leaving her husband’s brand new car running in the parking lot of a mall for two hours (seriously, it gives me a new sense of hope in humanity, that story) . . . but how much we should tell our spouses.

Here’s why . . .

It was just a lemon drop.

A simple little lemon drop sitting on the tray between the two front seats of my car. There were more, but a few lemon drops had spilled out of the package and B grabbed one. He popped it into his mouth, and I sat silently, watching.

Should I say something? Or should I just let it go?

It was already too late, so I decided to just let it go. The drop was already in his mouth. It wouldn’t kill him, I reasoned.

Two days later, B came into the house. “So, where did the lemon drops go?”

“Oh,” I said, ever-so-casually, “I decided it was time to clean off the tray in the car, so I threw them away.”

“Really?” says he, also-so-casually. “Why would you do that? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that THE DOG LICKED THE LEMON DROPS, would it?”

Busted. I was seriously busted.

Turns out, B was driving Maggie over to school and he had a sudden hankerin’ for a lemon drop, but they were gone. Disposed of, if you will. So he asked Maggie where they went.

Her reply? “Oh, Mom probably threw those out because Thunder licked them.”

*gulp*

“When did Thunder lick them?”

“Oh, a couple of weeks ago when we went to the vet.”

True confessions time. Yes, I took my dog to the vet. Yes, the dog licked the lemon drops. And yes, even worse, I didn’t get them cleaned up for . . . oh . . . a while.

But everyone who usually (Note the use of the word “usually” here. B doesn’t usually drive my car. It was a very unusual week.) rides in my car knew not to touch the lemon drops. I mean, why would you? The dog licked them.

But B didn’t know that. I had every intention of cleaning them up, I just didn’t get around to it before he got in my car and suddenly started craving lemon drops. And popping them into his mouth before I could stop him. Seriously, does a guy have to eat everything in sight?

Such was my quandry at that moment. Do I tell? Or don’t I?

So I ask you . . . when I saw him pop that drop, should I have said something? What would you do?

Oh, and if you left your husband’s car running for two hours in the parking lot of a mall, would you mention it? I know I wouldn’t!