Rules Girl

"You're a rules girl," my friend said to me the other morning over a cup of coffee. It wasn't an indictment -- it was a statement of fact. I agreed that I was. By this, she and I mean that we stand behind the line until we are called, we don't ride on the shoulder of the highway -- we wait until an exit comes up, we don't try to get away with anything when the rules are clearly marked or verbally explained to us. My friend had a favor to ask me, and it involved some rule-breaking, so she was pretty certain that I wouldn't comply. But when she began asking me to adopt a shelter cat for her (meaning, I would fill out the paperwork, but she would take the cat home), I didn't hesitate to say yes. She didn't even have time to finish the question before I agreed.

As it turns out, after much soul-searching about this after the fact, I may not be a rules girl after all. I do like to get away with things, like keeping my CPE I.D. after leaving the hospital and the program, like sneaking food into a movie theater, and today, like buying a ordination exam guidebook for a friend at another seminary. The person in administration selling me the study guide said, innocently enough, "Studying for ords, eh?" But the rules girl in me that can't lie (and maybe I felt the need to brag, who knows?) said, "Oh, no, I'm done with those. It's for a friend at [another] seminary." This engendered the reply (from an obvious non-rules girl), "I didn't just hear you say that." So she took my (friend's) money, and I took the book, with a pang of conscious, and mailed it overnight to my friend as requested, who will use it before taking ords later this month. I guess, like the cat, it's for the greater good....

This is my ethical conundrum at the moment. Not earth-shattering, I know....and probably won't keep me up tonight either (phew!).