Cheaters Often Prosper
Sharp lessons from youth stand out in my mind, a snap-shot reel of images that play out the crucial scenes from a formative moment. Although I was only a small boy, I can remember the feeling of the chocolate bar in my pocket, flat and stiff, poking into my leg. I can remember my mother's face, in the car, when she watched me start peeling back the foil wrapper. And I most certainly remember her walking me down the checkout aisle of the grocery store I had stolen it from when she made me hand it back to the manager, who smiled at me from under a waxy, black mustache. It was a stiff reprimand from my parents (my father had also been in the car) regarding the act of thievery, as evidenced by the clarity of the images that I recall. But what if I had succeeded? What if I had kept it in my pocket until I got home and opened it in secret? What sort of reversed moral reinforcement would have imprinted itself? My mother had, when I was young, oft...