THE RIGHT THING: WHAT WAS I THINKING?

As always at the turn of the year, it's time to reassess the past 12 months -- which, for me, means to reconsider a handful of columns that made some readers wonder, "What were you thinking?"

Four columns in particular drew responses that prompted me to revisit some of the issues therein.

COUPON RETURNS.

Back in March I advised Jennifer Schwanke of Columbus, Ohio, that she had done the right thing by deciding not to use the coupons that were given her for purchasing a freezer, after she had decided to return the freezer. The coupons provided discounts at various area food stores.

Laurie Marshall, owner of Kelly's Coffee and Fudge Factory in Anaheim, Calif., and Rachael Ritchie, owner of GoodFella's Pizza in Athens, Ohio, both took me to task for missing the retailer's point of view. Coupons are meant to draw business, they pointed out, and the stores that issued the coupons don't care whether or not she kept the freezer.

"I am struggling to get people in my door," Marshall wrote. "Using the coupon would get her into my store when she might not otherwise come in."

Ritchie and Marshall are correct, and I was wrong. As long as the retailer from whom Schwanke almost bought the freezer attached no strings to use of the coupons, using them would be perfectly fair. Nobody would suffer for it, and she and the food stores might both benefit.

THY NEIGHBOR'S TRASH.

A reader was concerned that, when their trash can was filled, her husband was putting their excess trash into the trash can of their neighbor, who has unused space. The neighbor had noticed, grown irate and eventually expressed her displeasure by depositing the garbage atop the husband's car.

In May I told my reader that her husband was wrong, and that he should seek permission before placing his excess trash in his neighbor's barrels.

"This is ridiculous," one reader wrote. "What difference does it make to the woman if he puts trash in her trash to be picked up? It's ludicrous that she gets upset."

Trash pickup seems to trigger vehement emotions among my readers. I had another 2008 column relating to this subject -- concerning an overzealous trash collector who made off with a reader's recyclables -- and it too drew some passionate responses.

In this case, though, I have to stick with my original response. I agree that the neighbor overreacted, but she was right to resent the husband's trash deposit. Her trash cans are not public wastebaskets and, in any case, many municipalities prohibit the depositing of household trash in public wastebaskets. They're her cans, so she gets to decide what goes in them. If he wanted to do the right thing, the husband should have asked permission.

IKEA ADS DISASSEMBLED.

"You'd have to be pretty dense not to pick up on the humor of the Ikea ads that poke fun at shoppers mistakenly thinking that they are taking advantage of what are permanently low prices," wrote Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C. "Your reader who was annoyed by the ad is a person looking to be annoyed."

I found the ad amusing, but wondered if Ikea had missed the boat by not considering having a consumer in the ad argue with the clerk that she had rung up a price that was too low. This would have shone a light on customers who try to be honest, instead of on those who try to get away with something.

I don't believe my reader missed the humor of the ad, any more than I did. I think that serious points can be made through humor, however, and I'd have liked to see Ikea work harder to do the right thing in its ads.

UNFORBIDDEN FRUIT.

Finally, in August a reader in Cypress, Calif., wondered if it would be wrong to pick a lemon or two from a tree that hangs over the fence of a nearby house and onto the nearby sidewalk. Her husband had told her that it would be wrong. She wasn't so sure.

I felt that the right thing to do would again involve getting permission from the tree's owner.

Gerald Boyden of Anaheim, Calif., was among a number of readers taking issue with my response.

"That fruit is considered to be residing `in the public domain,"' Boyden wrote. "It belongs to anyone who cares to claim it. There is no violation of ethics involved."

I noted in the original column that there was nothing wrong with helping oneself from a legal point of view, because Cypress has no ordinance against picking overhanging fruit. But what's legal is not always what's ethical, and most of the time ethical behavior requires more than simply not violating the law.

The law may not take cognizance of the fact that the tree has been raised, watered, nourished, tended and maintained by its owner, not by passers-by. Ethical considerations do take that fact into account, however, so I still think that the right thing is to ask the owner's permission. Legalities aside, it's the civil and fair thing to do, and therefore it's the ethical choice to make.

I know my readers will continue to do the right thing by sharing their wisdom with me by e-mailing me at rightthing@nytimes.com as the new year progresses.

c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)