Turns out I actually was a hooligan

I used to be a thief.
A lifter. A pilferer. A purloiner.
I stole.

We were living in the Yukon, in Whitehorse, and I was 9. On Wednesday's after school I took a city bus across town to go to a dance class. On the way home I had to stop at The Bay to change buses. I always had half an hour to kill before the next bus came and instead of waiting around outside in the freezing cold I would wander through The Bay spending most of my time browsing in the candy section.

In the months preceding Christmas they had the most amazing candy; large plastic candy canes filled with Smarties, lifesaver storybooks, boxes and boxes of After 8's and Pot of Gold. Week after week of walking up and down those aisles I became filled with a deep longing. I wanted a lifesaver storybook. I longed for boxes of After 8's I needed a Smartie-filled plastic candy cane.

And so, I took them.

My bedroom closet became a veritable candy store of bootlegged items. My sisters would come and look in awe at my closet, "Wow! where'd you get all this?"
"My friends" I would casually reply. I honestly do not remember feeling any sort of guilt about stealing. The only niggle of concern I ever had was that my mom would find it.

I stole candy from The Bay on a weekly basis but I was never caught. I did have one dicey moment though. I was wandering through a bulk candy section that had rows and rows of hard candies all colour coordinated which, come to think of it, is probably what inspired me to arrange my closet by colour later on in life. It was absolutely beautiful. It glowed with a soft pulsing light and I believe, yes I'm quite sure, I even heard faint strains of the Hallelujah Chorus filtering down from the Heavens.
I. had. to. have. one.

Directly across from the candy a cash register stood on a counter and there were 2 ladies standing behind the counter chatting away. This was going to be a trickier lift than the unsupervised aisles of boxed chocolate and required some careful manoeuvering. I slipped off my left mitt and walked slowly up and down the aisle staking out which candy I wanted to take. Up. How about that blue one? Down. Maybe I want something lemony? Up. But I do love licorice babies. Down. There that one! The candy I settled on was hard and pink and glossy. On the next turn up the aisle in which my left mitten-less hand was closest to the candy I slowly grabbed the pink candy by the crinkled end of the wrapper and slipped it into my right mitten. At this point, the ladies conversation, which I had not noticed before, caught my attention in its absence. I knew they were suspicious of me. I could feel their eyes burning into the back of my head so I grabbed a candy at random and turned with my brightest, most innocent smile and said, "excuse me please. How much is it for one candy?" With heart racing, I handed over a penny and walked trembling back out to the bus stop. The pink candy was still clutched tightly in my hand hidden inside my mitten. I ate two candies on that bus ride home. And the pink one? It tasted like victory.

After that incident I avoided that candy counter like the plague. And then, after Christmas I decided to put an end to my life of crime. I realized if I kept it up it would just be a matter of time before I got caught. And besides, all the good candy, like the Smartie-filled candy canes, were gone so there wasn't anything I really wanted.

I wasn't hit with the urge to steal again until I was almost 11. We had moved to Smithers, BC, well Telkwa to be more precise, a few months after I turned 10. I had made some friends in the elementary school and life was just fine. One of the things us kids would do for fun in Telkwa was go down to The Store and buy a chocolate bar or popsicle. You know you live in a small town when you can refer to The Store and no one asks "which one?"

Anyway, I was having a sleepover with a friend and we were bored so we set off for The Store with a dollar in our pockets. I need to point out here that I actually had money with me and what followed was not an act of desperation. I think it was boredom. Or maybe I just wanted to show off and prove to my small town friend how worldly I was. (Notice that I came from Whitehorse and thought of my friend as small town?) Whatever the reason, just before reaching the store I told my friend I was going to steal my chocolate bar instead of buying it. Before she could say a word, we opened The Store doors and walked in. I pulled some of the same moves as before in The Bay, wandering up and down the aisles picking up and putting down items, as if considering and then rejecting them as not worthy to spend my dollar on. I also dropped my money in view of the ladies working to divert suspicion and prove I was not some hooligan. Finally, I slipped a Wonderbar into my coat pocket. No sooner had I slipped it in then I was accosted by the lady at the till, who I was sure had not been looking, and accused of stealing. Had I had my wits about me I would have realized that you cannot be accused of stealing until you actually leave the building and I would have shown her my money and said I had put the chocolate bar in my pocket by accident pretending to be shocked and embarassed by the whole misunderstanding. But I didn't think of that until much later that night when I was tossing and turning and writhing in guilt-induced agony on my friends water bed. To this day I hate water beds. I equate the rolling of that bed to the rolling of my guilty stomach that night. And why was I in such agony? Not because my morals were bothered. No, I was in agony because I had been caught and I had to go home the next day and, before the store called, tell my parents what I had done. I dreaded the punishment I was sure to receive.

After that experience I never stole anything again and never even wanted to.
Until yesterday.

Yesterday I was at the Superstore. All the groceries from my groaning cart had been scanned and paid for. I finished bagging the last bag and went to put it into the last free spot in my cart. I stopped. Lying there was floss, deodorant, and Winnie-The-Pooh toothpaste. My face flushed, my heart pounded and I glanced up in alarm. Oh no! It's just like the candy bar in the pocket all over again except this time it really was an accident! I looked around expecting Superstore security to be converging on me. But actually no one was paying me any attention at all and the girl was already in the middle of ringing in someone else's order. And then I was caught in a dilemma. Do I just take them? I am already through the line. Do I leave them? No, I really need them. Do I pay for them? Which means waiting in line again. I decided to take them. I picked them up to throw them in a bag when the morals I had had beaten into me (semi-literally) when I was 11 reared their head. I just couldn't do it. Taking things is W-R-O-N-G. I paid for them.

I guess I have really and truly given up my life of crime. I'm sure my kids will be very relieved not to see their mom hauled off in handcuffs.