Does software piracy count?

Ah who am I kidding, of course it doesn’t.

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.

I nicked a LEGO winch brick from primary school and my gran made me take it back. Not a criminal mastermind.

I am advocating for shoplifting but the only thing I ever stole was a small packet of seeds from home depot when I was 7

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)

Breakroom at my father’s office had snack and soda vending machines, and also a change machine. My younger brother and I discovered the change machine was faulty, and would dispense way too much change for a dollar bill. We fed it every single we had (4 or 5 dollars between us) and got back $20 or so in quarters, nickels and dimes. This was in the late 1970s. $20 was a lot of money, especially to a couple of dumb kids. We thought we’d hit the jackpot.

The first thing was probably a set of earrings when I was a really little guy. I handed them to my mom when we got home and she was shocked at what a smooth swipe I pulled and we immediately went back to return them. So much for my thoughtful gift! Hahaha.

I also recall this thing at my very conserva-religious elementary school, where people set up a little market selling things as gifts and such. I was given some money to go buy presents for people, but nobody told me how to pay for anything, and I assumed it was like a big box store where you pay at the end.

So here I am like, what, 6 or 7 maybe? Going from table to table and just yoinking knick-knacks into my little bag. Nobody stopped me or otherwise corrected me. I still don’t see anywhere to “check out”! I end up just leaving, basically.

Cut to me waiting in the lunch line and just getting straight up shaken down and accosted for cash by some authoritarian staff types. I just handed them the bag of spending money I’d been supplied with and I don’t really remember what happened after that. Looking back though, those people were very mean to a confused child under 10, treating me like some deliberate criminal mastermind of petty-thievery lol.

In first grade? There was this little Hot Wheels style car that could transform into a robot man. I loved that little thing. Top favorite toy in the classroom.

Took it home one day. I was too afraid to play with it, so I just stuffed it into the box with the other toy cars. I was also too afraid to return it after a while. I still have it, and the guilt over taking this thing lives rent-free in my head.

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.

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A newspaper.

Did not know it was stealing… I was … maybe 7?

Up until that point in my life, I’d only ever been to stores or restaurants that had free flyers or small community newsletters.

First time I was in a similar small store, I assumed full, 30+ page newspapers worked the same way.

After being informed that full newspapers cost money, and I had stolen it, I returned it.

The store clerk did not even realize I had taken the paper, laughed, appreciated my honesty, and gave me a tootsie pop.

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.

My moms heart when I was born.

I read a YA book about someone methodically planning, then stealing a computerized chess board (a big deal in the 80’s/early 90’s). They recorded people saying different words for the audio message telling the clerk to lock themself in the BATHROOM, timed it out, etc. While this obviously wasn’t me, it always stuck with me, and I somehow got secondhand guilt from it…

My mom’s heart.