I teach a unit on crime once every twelve weeks and it’s coming up again on Monday. It’s not my favourite unit by any stretch but I seize the opportunity to tell the story of my sojourn into the seedy underworld of theft. Simply, I was at the GAP trying to return a Christmas sweater that was too big. It was Boxing Day, the lines were LONG, and I didn’t want to wait. After surveilling the surveillance unit, a rather ineffectual-looking young troglodyte, I slipped the exchange sweater in my shopping bag and made a beeline for the door. I escaped with impunity.
What I fail to mention in class is how it came to pass that a “good girl” like me would do something as antisocial as shoplifting.
Halloween Night, 1987: It was a dark and stormy night, truly. I was afraid the rain would never stop, especially in time for trick-or-treating. Dad had made me a robot costume out of a toilet paper box he’d picked up from Loblaws that I was pretty proud of even though it was a mild pain in the ass to haul around. That afternoon, Dad asked Uncle Dan to drive him to IKEA so he could buy me a bookshelf. I was looking forward to having one but I resented that picking it up was cutting into my and my cousin Melodie’s Halloween time. What was Dad thinking?
We arrived at IKEA and after what seemed like forever, a few workers placed a bookshelf in front of us. As it turned out, the shelf was flawed. The workers scrambled to replace it while Dad and Dan scrambled to stuff the defective unit in Dan’s utility van. Dad paid for the good one, the workers loaded it into Dan’s van, atop the damaged one, and we peeled away just in time to make it home for Halloween’s second round. That was the first night I experienced the thrill of audacity.
The experience of the Halloween heist was soon supplanted in my psyche by what would turn out to be the great annual Christmas tree caper. Since Dad never drove his 1964 Chevy Boat, we always relied on the kindness of one of his shady friends to assist us in our delinquency. I don’t remember how it started but the outcome was always the same: we would go to a local tree seller and through some subterfuge or other, we managed to distract the owner for long enough to tie a tree to the roof of the car and drive away. It worked every time and I started taking it for granted.
“Do you want to get a Christmas tree this weekend,” Dad would ask.
“Can we steal it?” I’d reply, eager for the fun.
“I don’t know this year …”
“Da-aaaaad!!! ”
The answer was always and invariably yes.
I was always an earnest if voracious student; under Papa’s tutelage, I committed all of his theories and practices to memory. His fundamental message was always crystal clear:
“I don’t steal because I have to. I have the money to pay for it. I do it … (pause for dramatic effect, cue full orchestra crescendo as his eyes water with tears) … because I can.” After the tear drying came the ardent addendum, “But don’t you do it!”
In my adolescence, I often boasted to the alternative smoking crowd that I was raised on robbery. I always had confectionary on hand, usually in the form of Werther’s Original, to dole out in exchange for attention and acceptance. “Stolen,” I declared smugly. Candy, clothing and the RENT soundtrack were among the many things my loving caretaker lifted for me. There seemed to be no end to his generosity.
However, under mysterious circumstances Dad couldn’t go into the Bay after the summer of 1997. Eventually, he confessed he had been leaving after “shopping” when a security officer tapped him on the shoulder and led him through a labyrinthine hallway to the security office. Security had been monitoring Papa’s sticky fingers throughout his shopping experience. The police were called and Daddy dearest was banned from the department store for one year. All criminal behaviour ended in the interim.
That was a lesson I never wanted to learn for myself.
I was happy that my vicarious entrée into criminality was spared the actual embarrassment of the inevitable bust. The lust for extreme highs/lows is not something I believe I possess. What I have developed over time, however, is an addiction to speed and efficiency and that has compelled me to do regrettable things.
“I didn’t just steal that Dollarama greeting card because I had to. I had the money to pay for it. I did it … (dramatic pause, smoke coming out my nostrils) …because I didn’t want to wait in a line that was moving like molasses!
“But don’t you do it!”
(the beast resides)
