Born Stupid or Learned Idiocy?

or

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

or

Still Stupid After All These Years

So, tomorrow I'm going to the bank. To get them to subtract about $650 out of my account. Not to withdraw it, but to get them to correct a mistake which mistakenly added that amount to my coffers.

But BlatherBlahg (you query in your most bewildered voice), aren't you hurting for cash very badly right now, with your unemployed, health expense beleaguered, no-opportunities-on-the-horizon self?

Yes, gentle reader, this is so.

But BlatherBlahg, isn't that $650 the very same debit/credit that never should have occured in the first place? The one that was a fraudulent charge you just happened to catch before it dropped, and prevented (theoretically, it turns out) the whole mess from even happening?


Yes, that's the one.

Umm, BlatherBlahg. Is this the same charge you've already contacted the bank AND the police about, more than once a piece? The one where the Bank Douche called you pregnant and still cocked up the works?

Why yes, what an excellent memory you have, m'dear.

Erm, so the bank has screwed themselves over by debiting and withdrawing this unauthorized (and allegedly cancelled) transaction from your account numerous times over the past few weeks. So many times that they lost count and have now accidentally left you with a $650 credit?

Clever reader, you should work in finance. You have caught on better than any of the banking employees I've spoken with about this matter.

And you're going to the bank to give this money back to them?

Yes.

Why?

Because I'm an idiot.

Oh, yeah.

As the title implies, I don't know if this kind of stupidity is innate or the product of intense conditioning at an early age. If it is learned, it's the kind of behavior that's learned early and cannot be undone by later input.

That is to say: at no point in my life have I found there to be any reward for being scrupulously honest. Not monetarily, not in the esteem of your peers, not in easing your life path, not even in a karmic sense. In fact, the opposite seems true--the attempt to be honest causes extra grief and strife.

I would not be surprised if, after I inform them of their mistake, the bank were to foul up my account further. That would be par for the course, as far as I can tell.

So, even though decades of experience have shown that adhering to this ethos is Counterproductive, Unrewarding, and Dead Stupid, I continue on. Perhaps giving credence to the idea that there must be some inborn proclivity towards this behavior. Genetic coding that produces a compulsive honesty and a constitutional inability to commit thievery.

Glorious.

I must confess, I am heartily sick of my case of scruples, and desperately wish they would come up with a cure for it.