your suspicious nature

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 01, 2006

When you heard about the arrest of the man doing background checks on employees for the Cincinnati archdiocese, I bet you jumped to a conclusion, didn't you. You just assumed that he had been arrested for...

Drug possession? No? Admit it, then; you were wrong. You're getting paranoid, and we really have to do something about all your silly suspicions.

But now it turns out that the man had a string of previous arrests. So now the archdiocesan personnel department looks bad. They must have been asleep at the switch, if they didn't do a criminal background check on the criminal-background checker. Don't you think?

Wrong again. The archdiocesan personnel director had known the young man for 20 years. His criminal record did not come as a surprise.

So why would someone knowingly hire an ex-con to do background checks? Admit it: You're getting suspicious again, aren't you?

Well waddaya know, the ex-con says that the personnel director had abused him over a period of years. The personnel director denies the charges. But don't worry; he has resigned now, and the police are investigating. You can relax; everything will turn out all right.

Now, about those crazy suspicions you keep having...