How to Die and Not Be Dead
A salutary lesson on why you shouldn't lie when selling lemons
The number one deadliest sin of all is to lie. And that is because not only is it immoral, but as sure as eggs are eggs it is going to come back and bite you very, very painfully on the posterior, as a very good friend of mine discovered to his horror many years ago.
My friend worked at a car dealership. He had sold a brand new car to an elderly couple who were absolutely delighted with their purchase for all of a week. The car in question became what is known as a Friday afternoon car, or, not to put too fine a point on it, a lemon.
That shiny new, right out-of-the-box little baby developed so many problems that the buyers went right back to the dealership demanding a replacement car. As it had less than ten miles on the clock and the elderly couple had a case, the dealership did as requested and took the car back giving them a faultless replacement. Problem solved.
The lemon was fixed up and sold on to another couple as almost new. When the new buyers asked how such a car had so few miles on the clock, the inexperienced salesman, for some reason, really didn’t want to tell them the truth. So he told the new owners that the previous owner was elderly and had died a week after taking delivery of the car. The salesman…
