by Bryan Belrad

Created on: December 19, 2008

Would you give up $1 million for honesty's sake?

In early December of 2008, Chris Connelly Jr., a Long Island convenience store clerk, sold a scratch off ticket to Mary Fallon, a 92 year-old regular. The elderly lady dutifully scratched away at the ticket's surface, and then cast it back onto the counter, a loser.

After she had departed the store, the young clerk picked up the discarded ticket to dispose of it, when he noticed something the woman hadn't. Although there were no matching dollar amounts showing, there were three letters repeated three times: JPT - Jackpot.

The woman had inadvertently thrown away a $1 million winner.

Thus far, the story sounds like any clerk's dream come true a big winner, literally dropped right in front of his nose! But, what comes next is quite the surprise.

While we may all simply be too pessimistic to ever think it could happen, the clerk actually looked up the lady's phone number and called her back into the store. It was a very merry Christmas indeed for her: not only was she lucky enough to win such a large amount, she was double-lucky in finding such an honest young man as would actually give the ticket she'd mistaken for a loser back to her!

The odds are incalculable.

Yesterday, the woman received her honorary super-sized check and announced her plans to share the good fortune with her 20 grandchildren, many of whom have kids of their own.

Such an occurrence, while wonderful, is almost shocking in today's society. Few of us would think twice about keeping the winnings for ourselves, and even those who are the exceptions would be hard-pressed to do the right thing, given the sheer size of the prize involved.

It wouldn't be a hard thing to justify to one's conscience: scratch-off tickets are bearer instruments, and the lady did throw the ticket away. Who among us could honestly say that he/she would pass up that kind of money, just for honesty's sake?

Considering that no one else in the world would know how the ticket was procured, who would even suspect to question the clerk's integrity?

It is said that every person has a price. For enough money, pretty much anyone will happily set integrity and values aside, no matter how onerous the deed in question. Yet, here we have a situation that isn't looked down on at all because no one would ever have known about it. Here we have a young man who had no one to answer to but himself, and he chose to do what we all might wish we would have the self-discipline to do.

While most of us have to seriously question just how much our own integrity is worth, this honorable clerk is one young man who knows for sure: Chris Connelly Jr. of Rockaway Point deliberately refused to sell out his values, not even for $1 million dollars.

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