*Acroth

“Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world isn't enough buy you a loaf of bread.” Josh Billings

I stumbled upon that quote today after I spent much of the day being a bit of aloof frustrated a bit by lacks of creativity but still budding inspired ideas. I swear one day they'll be put to pen to paper some day *crosses his fingers* hehe. No what brought attention to this quote was a few days ago I was on a service over in Mattox Texas which is just a very small township around New Diana and Lone Star, The service went slightly long and one of my co-workers gave me some petty cash for lunch since the day was drawing late. Well on my return back to Longview I stopped a local Texmex restaurant that seemed pretty popular seeing the large crowd of folks there, and indeed it was quite good food and the hostess was a very sweet young woman that seemed a bit wore out from all the hustle and bustle. After I paid for lunch and left a nice tip with my own money I went back to the funeral home and put in the receipt and the rest of the change to our book keeper.

She told me I gave her way too much back, puzzled I asked how much I gave in she said over 20 dollars worth. The meal only came to 13 dollars. So she over paid me seven, now I know to some they feel well its only seven dollars but to me I couldn't keep it. So I took my car back to the restaurant and returned the extra, and I never thought I'd get a lot of surprised looks. Come to find out it was the waitress's first day there and she was very much thankful that I came back and returned the extra monies. So I left the restaurant a tad bit lighter in my wallet ((I don't think lint and my lucky mushed penny is legal tender)) but I guess I'm a bit wealthy in other areas.

I told a couple of my coworkers the what happen one felt it was nice while another felt I should of kept it and not of wasted the gas to drive back. This other person told me a similar story where he was buying fireworks on the forth of July the attendant of the stand was very intoxicated he said the attendant was rude and tacky. The coworker bought eighty dollars worth of fireworks paid a hundred and got back four hundred in change now I don't know if he was yanking my chain I certainly felt he might of been embellishing it. But really even though the guy might of had a bad day or was just being and ass would you still feel justified at taking the guys money. Well apparently he did and went back 20 mins later and bought more fire works from him.

So I have to ask has anybody experienced something similar or if they where faced with the same choice would you keep the money or take the extra step and return it?