I am not advocating shoplifting, but we all did something dumb as a kid. What is your story?
Me, I was 2 years old and at Tim Hortons with my mother and a family friend. This was almost 50 years ago and Tim Hortons still had servers back then, so there was a cutout in the counter for them to go in and out. The donuts are in racks behind the counter. I had had a chocolate donut paid for by my mother, and apparently I decided I wanted another, and I was so little I nipped behind the counter when nobody was there, helped myself to another, and was only discovered when my mother noticed me polishing off a different donut. She did pay for it and everyone laughed, I was just little and it was funny. Sadly the quality of Tim Hortons donuts has gone way downhill over the intervening years, as older Canadians know.
I stole a pen once, by accident
I’m told it was mother’s heart.
In the first grade, I was bullied by a popular kid in my school.
Back in those days (early '90s), the cool thing was to have pencil grips. Kids loved to show off an assortment of colors and styles of them. This bully of mine happened to have a single pencil, covered from tip to eraser with pencil grips, which was his prize possession. He was always showing it off to everyone. It was rumored he’d been stealing them off other kids, but no one could definitively prove it.
When he wasn’t looking one day, I snatched his favorite pencil with all the pencil grips. It was justice for all the times he picked on me in grade school. I enjoyed watching him frantically turn his backpack inside out, trying to find it.
I didn’t get to keep it for long, though. A week later, one of the stricter teachers found it in my backpack and told me I had too many pencil grips for a single pencil, so she confiscated it. I didn’t know any better at the time, or else I would’ve complained about her stealing my property. But it was already stolen, so I didn’t really care to fight it.
That was the first and last time I stole something. I actually agonized over it for a long time afterward. I was relieved when the teacher stole it from me because it was finally out of my hands and I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. I never stole anything else again; the anxiety of holding onto stolen goods etched itself deep into my psyche.
Also calling out my sister: When I was maybe 6 or so, my mother found a stash of candy in a cabinet of our kitchen; mostly Lifesavers. She asked me where it came from and I just shrugged. She then asked my sister, who was 2 years younger than me, and my sis immediately broke down crying. Turns out, every time my mother went to the gas station, my little sis would grab a couple rolls of Lifesavers and pocket them. She thought my parents would never look in the messy cabinets of our kitchen. I'm pretty sure she never stole again after getting caught. She was a wreck for a while afterward and almost terrified of candy when offered.Wow, that’s a Dostoyevskyian level story right there.
In my teens, I stole some CDs. This was pre-napster. I didn’t have money to spend bit it’s hard to deny the importance of music to people, especially in those formative years. I only took 2 maybe 3 total, because the guilt walking it with the CD each time wasn’t worth it.
To give you an idea of how much guilt, I don’t like people offering me food… Because it was theirs and now it’s not. The fact they offered it means nothing. (Of course the reverse isn’t true)
I nicked a LEGO winch brick from primary school and my gran made me take it back. Not a criminal mastermind.
In 5th grade I discovered that my hand and wrist were small enough to reach up into 25 cent bathroom pad and tampon dispensers. I didn’t really understand what they were for but I thought it was funny to empty them out whenever I saw them.
When I went to malls as a teenager I would often get stopped and searched as if I was shoplifting. Was over 6’ at 16 and often wore hoodies. When I started getting into cross-dressing I was too ashamed to go through checkout with it. So I dressed in nicer clothes then hoodie and jeans, and shoplifted women’s clothing from every clothing store that ever stopped and searched me incorrectly previously. Part shame part revenge part kink.
Not that I remember but apparently when I was 2 yrs old or so I snatched a handful of very expensive wedding cake from a bakery display window while my dad was busy paying at the counter. He noticed when picking me up to leave and godspeed back home because he couldn’t afford paying the now damaged cake.
The first and only thing I remember stealing was a monkey toy when I was 3 or 4 yrs. Went to a party or something at someone’s house, there were other kids there and I decided I deserved that monkey more than they did so I pocketed it. My parents found out afterwards, they weren’t happy about it but didn’t care enough to return the toy to the owner. I guess it was a cheap toy.
I stole a snickers bar when I was like 5. My mom knew before I got home. She kicked my ass when I got home.
I think it was something like $30 out of my brother’s wallet. Boy did I get in trouble for that one. In my defense, he had just left it lying on top of his bed’s side table! You can’t expect a five year old to not steal $30 out of a wallet just lying on a side table in a room with a closed door!
I don’t even know what I spent it on, thinking back. Probably those little styrofoam airplanes you could put together from the little store out in the country that was nearby.
Sweets, then upgraded to lighters
Stole some clothes from Hot Topic; had to remove the ink tags later by hand. I skipped school with my crush at the time and it was a rush.
Some loose change from my dad to buy lunch at school.
I stole so many books as a kid. The library didn’t have books on Wicca and Paganism so I stole them from Waldenbooks.
I accidentally took a screwdriver from Sears as a toddler. Been stealing screwdrivers every day since /s
