Keeping me in line

Eli has a friend who has real clear boundaries when it comes to 'cheating'. We will call him Bill. I found this out when I was in charge of several boys for an afternoon and decided to take them to the local community pool. 

Now, when we signed up for a family pass, the pool worker said that our family of four was not maxing out the benefits of the pass, and was their anyone else we wanted to add for the summer?  We were not prepared for this question and the line was long behind us.  It was hot.  We wanted to swim.  We couldn't come up with a single name. So we ended up with four passes.  This background is important.  I don't want you to consider me totally amoral.

Because when I had five boys, and two of them did not have passes.  I gladly used Theo's (who was not with us) for one boy, and asked Bill's mom if she could send both of her sons' passes so I could get the last boy in for free.  She readily agreed.  Gave the passes to Bill with her blessing.  But then she wasn't there when the passes had to be presented.  I asked Bill to give them all to me and I would usher everyone through.  He did, but looked a little pale.  At this point I had no idea he was in a moral dilema of epic proportions.  Just thought he was  a little carsick.  Turns out he was wondering how 10 year old african american T'dabi was going to get in on his little white 8 year old brother's pass.  Here's the thing- the pool workers didn't care!  They had already asked us, practically begged us, to list an extra on our family pass.  We failed.  I interpreted this as an open invitation to use our passes for anyone we brought with us, as long as we had enough passes for the size of our group.  Bill disagreed.  Loudly.  At the front of the line.  Right as I was about to hand the passes to the attendant Bill grabbed them from my hand and said, "I can't do this!"  Then he looked at the attendant and said, "T'dabi is NOT my brother.  But my brother is not here.  Can I use his pass for T'Dabi?"  I groaned.  Couldn't he see this was putting the attendant in an awkward position?  I had been willing to be the morally culpable person.  But here we were.  The attendant smiled awkwardly, hemmed, hawed, then passed us through.  Bill beamed.  He could now enjoy the pool without a guilty conscience.

We had a lovely time.

Then we got in the car to come home.  I turned on the radio.  To the Current, a Minnesota Public Radio station that happened to be in the middle of a pledge drive.  Bill immediately asked, "Gretchen.  Are you MPR members?"  Yes Bill, we are.  "Well, are you sustaining members?"  Yes.  "Good."  And he sat back with a smile and began humming along.   I am sure if I had answered differently he would have reached up and clicked it off.  If I didn't snap his fingers in half beforehand.  There's only so much moral judging I can take from 11 year olds.