Drawing upon her rich experience of life, Prudence (Prudie to her friends) responds to questions about manners, personal relations, politics, and other subjects. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. Queries should not exceed 200 words in length. Please indicate how you wish your letter to be signed, preferably including your location.
Dear Prudie,
As just an ordinary citizen I could never have believed that I would become embroiled in the presidential scandal. Not publicly, of course, but among my circle of friends.
Although I am not a wagering sort, I foolishly made a bet with a friend before the president's first apology. I insisted that he would not come forth with a public mea culpa. My friend insisted that he would. After some heated discussion we agreed to place a $5 wager on the whole sordid mess, thus adding five more dollars to the $40 million cost.
Now that the president has spoken, I am in a terrible quandary. I am a law-abiding, honorable, decent citizen, and I stand by my responsibilities and my debts. But the question is: What is my debt? Was that speech a mea culpa? I say, "No." My friend says, "Yes." I have thought of a Solomonic approach in which I would send $2.50 to my friend and he would send $2.50 to me, but I am also a principled person, and it is my view that this was no mea culpa--and I am backed by many commentators, such as Mike Kelly, who said in the Washington Post, "This speech wasn't a mea culpa. It was an everybody-else culpa."
I do not want to seem cheap, but if one parsed that speech, perhaps one might settle on it being one-twentieth of a mea culpa. I would then owe my friend 25 cents. Is there any way at all that you can help me do the right, honorable, and principled thing here?
You be the judge.
--Heads or Tails
Dear Heads,
Prudie is not a betting parlor, but she sympathizes with you, having had her own doubts about that speech. Since there is disputation about what exactly got said, and your bet was with a friend, Prudie suggests the two of you go out to lunch--Dutch--and devote some of the luncheon conversation to the sad and shabby affair.
