Snatch
I stole two bottles of Poland Spring from a coffehouse today. I'd just been in there buying two iced coffees for me and my friend, but after paying and walking out I forgot that we needed water. When I went back in the line was twice as long and no one noticed me standing at the back with the two bottles I'd snatched from the beverage center. I didn't want to wait. So I left with them.
Back in junior high school you were hot shit if you could get a five-finger discount from Spencer Gifts, that absurdly tacky store that sold cheaply made make-up and jewelry, fiber optic lights, Christina Applegate posters, and dirty cards in the 18+ section. Spencer had mirrors on the ceiling so shoplifting was tricky, which made it that much more tempting. Everytime I stole lip gloss from there, I'd try it on at home and it would be the wrongest color possible.
In high school we stole cigarettes and bug spray from the local convenient store. We spent most weekend nights getting drunk and high in the woods. Bug repellant was a necessity during those hot, sticky summers. I stole clothes from my dad. Belts and denim, mostly. I'd find old brown leather belts in the back of his closet that clearly hadn't been worn since the seventies. They were perfect in their beat up beatnikness. I'd cut the bottom of the jeans I stole from his room so that they were shaggy at the ends and just the right length. They were already worn in and just baggy enough to look hip and sexy. I had the audacity to walk out of the house right in front of him wearing his clothes, not knowing whether he ever actually realized it or not.
In college we stole from vendors who came to sell their wares in Commons Lounge. Sunglasses, silver hoop earrings, rings with onyx stones in them. One weekend my roommates and I took a long drive out of town and found a hippy shack where a smallish matronly woman sold beads, stones, and crystals. After we spoke to her for a long time about the meaning behind the goods, I pocketed a clear crystal the size of my two thumbs put together. "You stole from there?" one of my roommates, who was usually my sticky fingered partner in crime, said to me incredulously. "But she was so nice to us!"
A couple of weeks later I noticed that the crystal, which I'd been wearing around my neck on a piece of leather string that the hippy woman had given to me for free, had a huge chip in it. A chunk of it had broken off. I was to have bad karma for the next fourteen years. Secretly, quietly, I threw the broken crystal away and never stole anything again until today.
Well, that's not exactly true.
