More Fun With Ethics!

Since you all did so well with my last ethical dilemma, I now invite your input on other circumstances in which I might be a horrible human being.  (Please don’t actually tell me I’m horrible, because I’ll cry.  Thanks.)

1.  Once upon a time I think I wrote a post about my friend Eric.  I can’t find it now, so perhaps that all happened in my head.  It’s possible.  Anyway, this is a guy I knew in high school, and we didn’t really have that much in common but we rode the bus to school together.  We talked on the bus and went to church together, and we kept in touch after graduation, but it tapered off to occasional emails eventually.  He moved to Oregon, then to Minot, ND, and he never had what I would call a “real” job because he was starting a Ministry or because his back hurt — there was always a reason, but never a plan.  Then he fell in love with a girl in India whom he met on the Internet (that’s the post I thought I wrote), and he actually got somebody to pay for a plane ticket for him to go to Mumbai, and now they’re married.

They want to move to the US, but obviously that’s not easy these days, and Eric hasn’t been able to convince the US government that he can support his wife (his resume consisting of McDonald’s and “living at my sister’s house until her husband said I had to get a job or move out”).  So, he asked me if I would agree to be their sponsor.  He wasn’t directly asking for money, just for my guarantee that if his wife did end up using government services like food stamps, that we’d reimburse Uncle Sam.  I said no.

I think I had good reasons: a lack of faith in his promises, a need to provide for my own family first (including the Jellyman’s cousins in India, whom we would love to help if any of them wanted to come here), and a sense that he has always looked at friendship as a fundraising opportunity.

Whatever the reasons, though, it appears to have cost me whatever friendship we did have left.  So, what do you think — does true generosity mean giving no matter what, or is it wise to allocate limited resources to the causes that seem most likely to bear fruit?

2.  Raisin’s preschool is in a large church.  The church building is built into a hill.  It has 5 (I think) entrances, but 3 of them can only be accessed by flights of stairs that can’t be navigated by stroller.  Of the remaining 2, 1 is locked.  I have a keycard from the preschool, but it only works on the two (non-stroller-accessible) entrances closest to the school rooms.  Since Apple and Orange are with me when I drop off Raisin, that leaves me with the main entrance to the church, which is usually unlocked by the time we get there in the morning.

However, the only parking spots anywhere near are handicapped-only.  This is not a problem in nice weather, but 75 yards with a 20-below windchill seems like it might not be so great for my babies’ tender little appendages.  So, the question: exactly how evil is it to park in a handicapped spot for 10 minutes (assuming that no church functions are in progress and that I will only do it on the coldest of cold days) while I take the kids in?