My Question of the Day: When Stanley’s girlfriend, Trudy, told him she was pregnant and needed $750 for an abortion, he tried everything he knew to convince her to have the baby, even getting his mother to call and assure Trudy that she would have plenty of help and support from Stanley’s side of the family. Trudy was adamant about terminating the pregnancy, so Stanley finally agreed to give her the money for the procedure. Stanley, although against the whole idea, told Trudy he would go with her, but she told Stanley her sister was going to go with her, explaining to Stanley that she didn’t feel comfortable having him there since he was so against the whole idea.

On the day Trudy is to have the abortion, Stanley finds himself totally depressed and unwilling to get out of bed. His best friend, Mike, comes over and physically pulls Stanley out of the bed and out of the house. They go to the mall just to walk and talk and window shop, and Stanley sees Trudy and her sister. Stanley pulls out his cellphone, puts it in video mode and he asks Mike to do the same with his phone, just in case one of the phones malfunctions. From different vantage points, both men, while keeping at a distance, record the women. Trudy pulls out the envelope that Stanley gave her with the money she said she needed for an abortion and pays for some clothes. She does the same thing in three other stores, buying a purse, some shoes and some things for her sister. When the women are in the fifth store, Stanley walks in and confronts Trudy. He doesn’t say anything. He just makes sure she sees him and then he turns and walks away.

Trudy doesn’t hear from Stanley until about three weeks later when he shows up at her door. When she looks through the peephole and sees him, she braces herself for the interaction. When she opens the door, another man steps into view and Stanley says, “Trudy. Meet Victor. Victor. Meet Trudy.” A little confused, Trudy extends her hand to shake the other man’s hand. Victor raises his hand and slaps an envelope into Trudy’s hand and says, “Trudy Dennis. You’ve been served.” Both Stanley and Victor walk away, leaving Trudy holding the envelope in one hand and the doorknob in the other.

When Trudy reads the notice, she learns that Stanley is suing her in civil court for $50,000 for fraud and mental anguish. At almost the same time Trudy finishes reading the paperwork, she gets a text message from her sister: “Stanley had me served. Call me now!”

Do you think Stanley is taking things too far by suing Trudy for her deception?

My 2 Cents: In a word, no.

I’ve heard of women doing this to men, and it’s totally morally reprehensible.

Although I don’t know of any man who has sued a woman for lying about a pregnancy to get money, he would have my support 100% if he did.

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The commentary doesn’€™t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

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3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

The Question: A good friend (not necessarily a close friend, but a good friend), who is a single parent, asks you if you will babysit his/her child(ren) on an upcoming Saturday because s/he is going to have to work overtime because of a big project his/her company has to complete before the end of the month. Your good friend wants to drop the child(ren) off on Friday night, because s/he says s/he’s going to be leaving for the office in the wee hours of the morning to start the project.

After a couple of days, when you’ve had time to make sure you’ll be free, you tell your good friend that you will babysit, and it will be fine to drop the child(ren) off on Friday evening after 7p.

About four days before the Friday evening that your good friend is supposed to bring his/her child(ren) to your home, you find out from a very, very credible source that your good friend isn’t working overtime at his/her job. S/he has planned a one-day trip to the biggest sporting event of the season for your favorite sport; an event you decided to forego (and that is now solded out) to help out your good friend.

What do you do?

My 2 Cents: I’d ask my friend to come by my house and then ask him/her point-blank, if s/he’s planning to go to the sporting event. I want to ask him/her face-to-face, because I’m definitely planning to verifiy his/her answer, and I’m not posing the option of whether s/he has to work. When you give a person a choice, they are more apt to compound their lie. I’d confront him/her on the issue that’s most important to me: Did you make plans to go to a sporting event on the day you’re asking me to watch your child(ren)?

If s/he says she really has to work, I’d ask for the name and telephone number of his/her superviser, so we could get him/her on speakerphone and verify that. If s/he admits that s/he lied and is planning to go to the sporting event, I’d decline to watch his/her child(ren), and I’d make it clear that I’m not the person to ask to babysit in the future.

That’s not to say I’d never babysit his/her children in the future. It’s just that s/he can’t ask me to babysit. I’ll volunteer my services when I know I’m free, and I know s/he has work/plans, but I won’t give him/her the opportunity to lie to me again. It saves us both hard feelings.

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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

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MusingMom  I would let the “good friend” know that I know that she is not working and tell her that she will have to find another sitter

Mo_Rease  I’d watch the kids but the parent would have to pay up.

QTKrisAriel  We wouldn’t be friends anymore.

JoshDamage  I simply ask my friend. If they did in fact lie I wudnt babysit. But that’s just me. I HATE a liar

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

My Question of the Day: A good friend (not necessarily a close friend, but a good friend), who is a single parent, asks you if you will babysit his/her child(ren) on an upcoming Saturday because s/he is going to have to work overtime because of a big project his/her company has to complete before the end of the month. Your good friend wants to drop the child(ren) off on Friday night, because s/he says s/he’s going to be leaving for the office in the wee hours of the morning to start the project.

After a couple of days, when you’ve had time to make sure you’ll be free, you tell your good friend that you will babysit, and it will be fine to drop the child(ren) off on Friday evening after 7p.

About four days before the Friday evening that your good friend is supposed to bring his/her child(ren) to your home, you find out from a very, very credible source that your good friend isn’t working overtime at his/her job. S/he has planned a one-day trip to the biggest sporting event of the season for your favorite sport; an event you decided to forego (and that is now solded out) to help out your good friend.

What do you do?

RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

FYI: You may edit your comment for up to 30 minutes after posting. After 30 minutes, your comment can no longer be revised.