Shameless

I've been robbed. Not the knife at the throat, or gun in your back, give me your wallet kind of robbery. No, actually this one was quite painfree and silent. Our checking account was robbed, using my husband's debit card number. Not his card, just the number and expiration date. How it happened, I have not yet determined, but it has set off a chain of events that brings me to my next topic - we are a world without shame.

The robbers got off with roughly $2500, most of which we didn't really have. So our account was overdrawn. We're not liable. We have to sign some paper work. We'll have a bunch of fees posted to our account for being even more overdrawn as legitimate checks we have written are cashed. We'll get that money back, they say at the bank. But it will still require vigilance on our part.

Someone steals money from me, using a card number that they got illegally from somewhere (and now I'm suspecting it is a cashier at Caribou Coffee, as that was one of the last places my husband used his card), bought a plane ticket to go somewhere I'll never go and they get off, completely free. I, on the other hand, get to have a heart attack (when I first discovered the theft), a little crying jag, a whole bunch of time checking the account online, talking to the bank, signing papers and then making sure that everything is given back to us so our account is back to normal, basically for the next few months. Have they no shame?

We are a society that revels in our revelations of infidelity, children without fathers (I'm thinking Jerry Springer here), doing your own thing regardless of how it affects other people. Music in your car too loud? Who cares...I'm doing what I want. Smoke blowing in someone's face at a restaurant? So? It's my business, butt out.

I'm not a fan of the kind of shame that makes people feel bad for things they have no control over. I'm not a scarlet letter kind of lady. Or the kind of shame that might have been heaped, in a former time, on a child of mixed race. There is some shame that has had it's time and we must move on. I wouldn't shame someone for a birth defect, or wearing a skimpy article of clothing. But where is our own sense of shame that keeps us from doing something wrong. Something we know is wrong?

My friend, K, told me a story about a nerdy boy who was asked someone in a car (a thump thump car, as my kids call them) to turn their music down as it was too loud and it was disrupting the general public. What happened? Well, I thought he would get beaten up, too. But, no, nothing happened. That boy, that brave boy who stood up to bad taste and poor judgment, just shuffled off and the music wasn't turned down. I'll bet the kid in the car drove off, laughing, getting a big kick out of the nerd to tried to tell him what to do. He probably proudly recounted the story to his friends. Hah, hah, too funny, what a shmuck.

I'm sure there was a time when, a comment like that might have actually caused the driver to say "oh, I'm sorry, here I'll turn it down." Can't say I've known that time in my life. People just get nastier and nastier, with no shame for their poor actions. It's just sad.

So, there you have it. No shame. Robbing, cheating, lying, bad choices. Maybe a little shame wouldn't be a bad thing? Maybe I wouldn't have to be so paranoid about using my debit card if someone had just been a little bit ashamed. Is that so wrong to ask?