It’s one of the principle lessons that children used to hear — and many still do — from parents, teachers and other authority figures: Don’t take something that isn’t yours without asking first.

Maybe it’s a lesson City Councilwoman Lena Hill-Lawrence forgot when she recently come across a table of uneaten and unattended food at the city’s annual employee appreciation lunch. That’s where her judgement appears to have vanished.

Instead of assuming her role of invited guest, attending for the purpose of sharing holiday fellowship with city workers, Hill-Lawrence set about heisting the unattended vittles.

She said she took the food because the lunch appeared to be over and she was concerned the food would be thrown out.

“I said, ‘gee, don’t throw this food out. I’ll just take it to some people in the community,” she said. “I thought it was going to be thrown out.”

Apparently, it hadn’t crossed her mind that perhaps the “leftover” food was being saved for employees who were working and hadn’t made it to the luncheon.

“Nobody said a word” not to take the food,” Hill-Lawrence said. “Nobody was around to say anything. The food was just sitting at the table.”

Poor excuse, councilwoman.

She said everyone at the event had already eaten and no one told her the food was being saved for other employees who hadn’t been able to attend. So she took it.

Her act of kindness didn’t go unnoticed.

“I just can’t imagine somebody doing that,” said fellow Councilwoman Anita Hummer, who said angry city employees tipped her off. “Council members were guests (at the employee luncheon). We were not there to help ourselves to things afterwards.”

We don’t know what happened when the hungry city workers who couldn’t attend eventually showed up with no food on the table, just bread crumbs. We trust somebody, somehow took care of them.

Meanwhile, to make things right, Hill-Lawrence reimbursed the city for the food she took — $50 for the half pan of food she said she took to shut-ins and hungry residents.

Later, Mayor Joe Peel said he brought Hill-Lawrence and Hummer together to get to the bottom of it.

“It was a misunderstanding” that “has been blown out of proportion,” he said, adding that he considered the issue done. “As far as I am concerned, it has been taken care of and we need to move on.”

We agree that it’s not a matter to dwell on, but Hill-Lawrence should have known better than to take the food without asking first. Additionally, she is an elected member of city council who represents the interests and highest expectations of voters in her ward. These are lessons we hope she has learned.

Don’t count on other council members to be as forgiving during upcoming debate on the budget and other issues, which can mean late-night meetings and pizza.

They’ll be keeping count of the pizza slices.