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A few weeks ago my Cuisinart popcorn popper broke. It's a 3-piece set and the plastic ring around the middle piece just cracked. In the old days, I would have either shoved the whole thing to the back of my pantry thinking that somehow when I pulled it out a year from now, it would work. My sister would probably have thrown all three pieces in the trash. I thought that since two out of three pieces worked, I'd see if I could hook up with someone who had the working piece and just needed the motor or the lid. I listed it on Craigslist.org and offered it at no charge to anyone who wanted it. One woman, Debbie, emailed me saying she'd love to have it, and we made arrangements for her to pick it up.

Because I knew I'd be gone most of the day on Sunday, and because our business is open all weekend, we gave the popper to one of our employees and told him Debbie would come to pick it up. We went to church and didn't think much more about it, but by the time we got home, the shift had changed, and Employee #1 had gone home for the day. I called to tell Employee #2 what was going on.

Employee #2, who has worked for us for several years, only knew of one popcorn popper in the place, and that was the theatre-style popcorn popper that we use at our business. Not only was this popcorn machine (not just a popper!) in perfect working condition, it had great sentimental value. My father-in-law's neighbor had been cleaning out his garage and agreed to sell it to us, along with all the encrusted grease, for twenty-five dollars! That was a lot of money back in the 1970s! My husband and I scrubbed it for hours to get it looking like new. We've hauled it cross country in our many moves and finally gave it a permanent resting place in the pro shop at our golf course.

When Debbie walked in and said she was here to pick up the popcorn popper, Employee #2 thought he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He loaded the popcorn machine into her car and she took off.

When we found out what had happened, we were just sick about it. I didn't have Debbie's phone number and the only way I could reach her was by email. I knew I stood a 50/50 chance of never seeing that popper again!

I composed a nice, but urgent email telling her that apparently there had been a misunderstanding. I gave her my phone number and asked her to give me a call. I addressed it to her believing that once she heard my story, she would be glad to return the machine. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. She called about an hour later and we had a good laugh about it. She told me that she walked in expecting just a small table size popper, but the "nice young man" was so insistent that this was the only popcorn popper he knew about, that she figured she must have been wrong. This nice young man helped her load the monster machine into the back of her truck and she headed home. She wondered where in the world she would put the popper, and by the time she called me, had already decided that she would just give it to a friend of hers who had a theatre room in her house.

We made arrangements for her to come by the next morning and return the popper. We had a nice visit and learned a little more about each other. It's just funny the way you end up meeting people! I had to ask if she had the missing piece that made this popper work. The only reason she wanted it was to help her cousin. He was disabled because of a motorcycle wreck and he likes to tinker, as she put it. She says he can fix anything, and thought this would give him something to work on. Hearing that, I wished that I hadn't thrown that broken piece away. Maybe he could have figured out a way to make it work!

I learned a few valuable lessons from this experience:

1. Don't assume that someone else is going to look out for your best interest. In this case, we had one employee who didn't care enough to give all of the information to another one. If he had just simply showed him the correct popper before he rushed out the door, we could have avoided a few hours of anguish.

2. Have faith in people. Debbie didn't really want that big popper and wasn't trying to get away with anything. She was trying to help her cousin. Once she knew that a mistake had been made, she wanted to do what was right to return the popper to me. I can't help but wonder what her response might have been if my email hadn't been written in a way that let her know I believed this was an honest mistake. I doubt that she would have wanted to help me out if I had been accusing, or had blamed her for stealing my popper.

3. Have integrity. I believe that if you're honest and have integrity, you have a better chance at winning in life. That doesn't mean life will be devoid of trials, but you'll sure sleep better at night. If you sleep in the gutter, you'll attract rats. Set your standards for something higher than that. Be a good example to everyone around you.

4. Things are only things. If that popcorn machine hadn't been returned, how dramatically would my life have been affected? Not much, really. I would have been sad to lose it, and I would have been angry with myself, my husband, or our employees for not communicating better, but in the big scheme of things, it was only a popcorn machine. Sure, it had some sentimental value, but its absence was not going to change my life.

5. Friendships can show up in the oddest places. While visiting with Debbie that next day, I took the time to learn more about her. She's about my age. She has a husband with Parkinson's disease who probably won't be able to work more than another year. She and a friend are starting a cookie basket business out of her home. They've converted her garage to a bakery and do all the work out there. They've been able to build this room almost entirely from materials and appliances they've gotten from craigslist.org. She has two grown kids and one grandchild. She's a very nice person, and I told her I was going to keep her name and number. You just never know when you might need a cookie basket for a friend, or have something that her cousin might be able to fix.

6. Always say "thank you." I couldn't thank Debbie enough for being honest. She said she knew I was thinking that I would never see that popcorn machine again. I told her I had known it was a possibility, but I just tried to think the best. Sometimes you're disappointed in people, but I'd prefer to at least start out giving them the benefit of the doubt.

If you want to succeed in every area of life, it's important to believe that honesty IS ALWAYS the best policy. If you want the respect of your friends and co-workers, you've got to show them your integrity by being honest in every situation. If you want your children to tell the truth, then your example will teach them more than any amount of preaching ever will.