More fun than Mayonnaise... or at least equally fun... OK, it's less fun, but you're still reading...
Today on the bus a really tall, butch, young, bald male was holding a book of Victorian Poetry. He dropped his pen, looked around briefly, and either didn't see it or didn't think he dropped something. I wanted to tell him it was just to the right of his shoe, but he was 7 rows away and I would have had to scream it (plus, the bus was full of people).
None of the other passangers seemed to care.... and it was a really crappy, chewed up pen. That's how I justified letting him lose it.... but I still feel bad about his 15c loss.
Posted by hans1995 at August 3, 2005 10:37 AM | TrackBackyou should write to The Ethicist about this moral dilemma. It may eat at you for the rest of your life.
Posted by: Roomie at August 3, 2005 01:06 PMThen again the dropped pen may have been a ruse to attract the attention of a nearer passenger whose attention was not wanting to be attracted. He might have been more successful by carrying a copy of "Hemmings Motor News."
Or it could have been yet another newswriter secretly gathering material to reveal how calously indifferent modern people are to the losses of strangers.
Offhand, I would say that if the pen was a mere 'Bic, then no eye should have been turned. However, if it were, say, a fountain pen of the Montblanc or a collectable Waterman marque then it was a bus of fools that let pass a slip of the pen ...
Posted by: Your Coworker at August 3, 2005 07:17 PMI went to http://www.montblanc.com/ at my coworker Ron's request.... all they had was a collection of women's purses.... is there something you aren't telling us, Ron(da)?
C'est ne pas tout, regard dans les autres pages, SVP.
Posted by: Votre Colleague at August 4, 2005 01:48 PMAs Freud might say, sometimes a pen is just a pen.
Posted by: Underblog at August 11, 2005 12:27 PM