I pulled into a drive-thru ATM today at lunch. There was an error message on the screen. "Your deposit could be not be accepted." And $25 cash left sitting in the cash tray.

I took the money. Canceled the prior customer's deposit. Started and completed my transaction. And then walked inside to return the money.

What's the morality lesson here?

The fact that I realized security cameras would be witnessing my actions.

Now, if I had found $25 outside the door of a Target...well, I suppose it would depend on how far outside the door the money was? If it were physically inside the building, I probably would have brought it to a cashier. If it were on the sidewalk, just outside the store, I probably would have done a quick glance for the owner, and then pocketed it.

Today, I learned nothing about my morality. Only that as our privacy diminishes, our lack of anonymity is going to force us to do better things - in fear of punishment.

Of course, this does not make us better people.

It took me several commercial breaks last night to remember that I wanted to watch the commercials.

Doing something else during the breaks, or tuning out altogether, has become 2nd nature to me.

And that's a big problem. Fortunately, we saw the solution last night. Incredibly entertaining advertisements. As entertaining as the program itself.

That solves the problem. But creates a new one altogether. Because for some reason, these advertisers think "being creative" is just for one night. And the rest of the year, we'll just bullet list the features of our latest car, while having it circle a mountainside.

But, wouldn't it be better if people actually wanted to watch your... advertainment?