accord and SATISFACTION

I am generally a very moral person with a healthy guilt complex.  I don't like to play the system because it feels like cheating.  Every time I've done something a little dishonest... I find that it's not worth the guilt I feel afterwards.

At dinner on Saturday night with a bunch of friends, our waitress forgot to charge us for our pitcher of margaritas.  The table was divided on whether or not we should mention it.  People threw out multiple reasons for not saying anything, "It's a $30 pitcher... that's SO overpriced."  "Their margs aren't even that good anyway."  "Who cares, we'll just tip the waitress a little extra."  In the end, those in favor of fessing up won out, and I thought our waitress was going to cry.  She thanked us profusely and told us that the cost of the pitcher otherwise would have  come out of her tips for the night.  Whether or not that was true, I knew we had done the right thing, and importantly for me personally, I knew I wouldn't later have that feeling in my stomach that I had cheated...

...Like I felt the time my sister borrowed my hair straightener and loved it, so I bought her the exact same one for Christmas, only to have mine burn out the following week.  I used the receipt from the purchase of my sister's hair straightener to "trade" mine in, acting like it was the new one that had burned out and needed to be replaced.  I felt awful about that... and I still do.  I can hardly believe I let myself do that, and I wish I had just sucked it up and spent the $85 to buy a new one.  Saving $85 wasn't worth the guilt I felt after the fact.  Even confessing this on the internet doesn't have the repentance effect I was hoping for and just leaves me (now publicly) embarrassed about my behavior.

All of this being said, HOWEVER... I have no qualms with using Accord and Satisfaction to "pay" my parking tickets and advising my friends to do the same.  For the non-lawyers out there, A&S is a legal doctrine that basically says, if someone cashes a check for less than the amount of the debt (essentially, the "accord"), with the words "Payment In Full" written in the memo section, the debt is considered satisfied (the "satisfaction"), and the creditor won't have any recourse to come back later and say you owe them the balance.  It's a beautiful thing.  There is some legal reasoning behind this, all having to do with the concepts of offer, acceptance and count-offer... but I'll save everyone (and myself) the brain damage of walking through it.

I almost never pay the full amount of my parking tickets.  I will pay $10 on a $25 ticket and $15-$20 on a $50 ticket (except for that time I got a parking ticket in the church parking lot... I paid the full amount on that one).  Then I incessantly check my bank account and wait for them to cash it.  My bank has that digital picture of the check thing... which allows to me see my cashed check, with that "payment in full" written in the memo box, and it makes me smile.

I don't know if it's the amount of money I borrowed to go to law school, or the little practical effect my everyday practice actually has on my own life, or the fact that I despise parking tickets... but for some reason, I get a certain "satisfaction" (obvious pun intended here) from discharging at least 50% of my parking ticket obligation. 

Any time my legal degree equates to satisfaction of a debt, it's a good day.