I like to steal.
A pretty idiotic preference, as unjustifiable as that puff of smoke in the mornings. I spew no anti-capitalist bullshit either. I haven’t grown up in poverty, and I’m not extraordinarily pissed off over the rise of prices. (At least, no more so than your average whiny 21 year old). I steal because I created my own log house of denial. It is not money, but my own rules and guilt that bind me. Maybe it’s the wonderful Chinese stinginess that my parents swamped over my childhood, or the workaholic perfectionism my “achievements” and my inflated sense of inferiority created, but I just can’t feel good about a purchase when I think about how much I don’t deserve it. But somehow, not paying for something renders that something null, making it an acquisition that’s worthless and hence okay to take.
Of course I feel guilty about spending money. Non-entities like me should save so they have some sort of tail to their name. I become removed when I steal, as if I don’t have to be accountable for these voracious desires I have to just take take take.
How spoiled. How repulsive. Sometimes the thought of getting away with free food is the only happiness I get in a day. The comfort of knowing that indulging in my greatest desire, (looking like a distended seven year old), is not going to cost me so much. Obviously I’m lying to myself, but it just feels so safe to think that if my eating disorder isn’t making me broke, then it’s not controlling my life.
Stealing and food is synonymous to me. The denial of always being hungry, quite sensibly, goes hand in hand with the need to satisfy compulsive eating, which I translate into desires for anything. Most of what I steal has to do with my lust for “the miracle diet”, which cause much anxiety because of the cost of these ridiculous artificial foods and pills. Stealing solves that tense battle of how blatantly I was under the control of this disease. Other people would think stealing the products would be a more obvious sign of my entrapment. I viewed it as the other way around, because I was not “wasting my money.”
And the ever persistent guilt that plagued me. This feeling came whenever I thought about what I’d bought in the past.
Every time my mom would bring up a purchase I had made that turned out to be a dud, shoes too big, a shirt too tight, pants I never could bring myself to wear, I felt like a waste of life. And then I would get on through the evening by thinking “that’s okay. You’ll make it up by stealing what you’ve wasted, so there is no debt.”
I was pretty good at it too. But who isn’t good at the little things? Most of the barriers towards stealing are just an over-active and illusory concept of security.
But, as Juan would say,
“You’re a natural.”
“I would even go so far as to say you’re talented. You’re so smooth. Nothing fazes you.”
Really? I guess because it had been such an easy thing for such a long time. The things I stole were of so little importance to anyone else that I can’t imagine myself being pursued for them. And I had never, in the three years that I had dabbled in taking things, come close to being caught.
When I first started, it had just been mustard. I had felt so guilty for my grocery expenses, when I was on the cafeteria meal plan. I never ate out, but I needed to have mustard on my salads everyday-it was the only dressing that was zero calories, and because the cafeteria only had the gaggy yellow, I would go out and by them along with diet muffins I was addicted to. I tallied up the total of my receipts and felt that I couldn’t be so indulgent. So I started sliding the Dijon mustards up my sweater sleeves at Gristedes every week. I began to take other, more expensive things the same way, like tubes of perfume at Victoria Secret. Soon after, I moved on to other items, just sticking them in quickly in my purse. Baby carrots, almond milk, or bars from Fairway. While in the outlets in Indiana, I took salad dressing and lipstick. I never went overboard, never gorged on my success. I stole from my school cafeteria daily, but didn’t count that because of the enormously high prices they ripped us off with.
Then came the hilarity of Amherst, Mass. Of course I had been stealing before Juan came along, but his admiration for my ripping off of grocery stores did propel me to get a little greedier. I lifted gum, candy, bars, muffins, bread, lettuce, crackers, cheese, energy bars, diet food. Sodas from Blockbuster or Target. Then toiletries, which we needed and felt bad for spending money on. Everyday I was progressing, from fancy lingerie, pajamas, skirts, blouses, and cardigans to cDs and earrings. Strange that I never felt guilt for taking them, but felt guilt for paying the rightful amount of money on them.

I stole around 40 to 50$ everyday for two weeks. I moved on to dares, taking the wildly overpriced compilations from Starbucks off the counter, or planning the heist of electronics. I mostly stuck with food though, because diet foods were the only things I looked forward to.
The night we got arrested, I had already made off with 40$ from Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart. With the prison scene from the movie we just saw still fresh in our heads, we went to Stop and Shop, one of our regular haunts, because I needed lettuce to keep my calorie levels low. I had a fleeting premonition that to do this at 12:30am wasn’t too good of an idea, but the cockiness of never being pursued deafened me.
As I pulsated through my fantasy world, where everyday was my birthday and I could just take whatever I wanted to, I grew reckless. Why else would I be dumb enough to stuff two bulky sacks of lettuce in my bag? Or laugh and linger conspicuously, making out with my boyfriend?
We walked out to the parking lot, and I started to giggle. Juan had stolen a big book of farts! While I asked him what else he had taken, I heard heavy pounding and a heavy arm roughly pull my bag.
“C’mon. Get inside.”
Of course. This hateful, unyielding voice, a big smelly vise on my arm. Of course it would happen.
“Just take the stuff and let her go” Juan says, rather feebly. The gargantuan night man said nothing, just shoved me into the store and marching us upstairs into the security room.
Was my face burning? I didn’t know. I was thinking about how to keep some semblance of control, trying to come up with a way to insert some sort of absolution for us into the picture. In fact, I was naively hoping that I’d just pay for the things and be furiously yelled at, with no further repercussions. .
Good luck with that.
“You guys ever been arrested before?”
“No sir.”
“Well you are now.”
Oh.
No, really? I didn’t believe him. How could I? I was, and still am, a hopeful idiot, living too much in my own head and not with the consequences.
He dumped my bag onto the table with a flourish. It made a sound like a feeble bomb, spluttering my smudgy candy wrappers and beer bottle tops everywhere. (I don’t drink. I was just collecting the tops to make a necklace.)
He then spent forty minutes rooting through our stuff, naturally taking the opportunity to lord over us punks how stupid we were for what we took.
“What’s this, a fart book? Some kind of joke? God damn.”
Counting once of course wasn’t enough. He had to paw through the items multiple times, scribble down numbers, recount them one by one, add up things on his paper, ask us endless questions, angrily re-scribble, recount, ask repeatedly how much the romaine lettuce was, look darkly at his clipboard, and mutter about what a pain in the ass it was to do all this writing. One has all the time in the world at the dead of night.
While this was going on, I kept thinking about how easy it would have been to just run away when I’d first heard the fat fuck clunking behind me. We totally could have gotten away with it, but no, I had to be shocked instead of quick. I pinched my arm with little nail marks with the craving to relive that moment, to be hurling into my dorm room with heart pounding instead of perching on a security chair being polite and meek to the fattest security guard in the US.
(Oh, but yes yes, we are repentant. We were wrong. He was doing his job. The tedium is all very understandable.)
He called up the cops, then asked us why we did it. We claimed we were hungry and broke. He continued with the questions, while I continued with the pointless worry that was spawned more out of idleness than actual emotion. The only fast thinking I did was give fake digits when they’d asked for my home number.
I looked at the clock and wondered how far the police headquarters were from here. Maybe they had to go on a L’il Debbie run before heading out, since who gives a shit about two twenty-something pranksters sitting pretty in a security room. Or maybe, because this was their only arrest of their week, they had to fuel up with grub for the effort.
Of course, when they did arrive, we had to go through another turtle-paced, condescending round of questioning. I combated my vicious need to yawn by biting my cheek. The prospect of a bleeding mouth was at least a new kind of sensation. By now I had reconciled myself to the fact that I was getting arrested, and was just bored out of my mind. I was aware of this, and also aware of the possibility of being held overnight, which scared me for the very fact that for ten hours I would be BORED OUT OF MY MIND. Every anxiety spiraled out of this one, the hideous possibility of being stuck with just my nude mind in a bare, foodless place. The fear of my arrest being made public was a fear only because I’d have to think about it while I was alone, by myself, without any distractions, in a cell. When it became clear that all I needed to not stay the night was a phone call, I devoted all my energy to figuring out who would be up, who would answer, and who would be the least bothered to come pick us up.
They questioned us quite thoroughly. They were the policemen of sitcoms. One built like a cookie, the only like a string bean. Why is it the tall thin one is always subservient to the squat one? Pity?
They handcuffed Juan first. I watched him with interest, noting that this would be a moment some girls might think hot. I don’t know if I thought it was hot, but I was grateful for his upright posture. This man is tethered to me? I started to muse, but then the beanpole motioned to me. As he spent considerably longer clicking the cuffs in, I amused myself by wondering whether my wrists were strangely small, since by the time he was done, they were still rather loose. An egotistical reflection, obviously, yet I still I tried prying my hands out while looking raptly and seriously at the officers. Even though I was cuffed second, the beanpole led me out first while they held Juan back for further questioning, their tired minds not even fathoming that the one hundred pound asian girl could have been the one with the truly sticky fingers.
I suppose they had their reasons for taking us separately, although I did think it was silly, us being completely docile out of towners. I caught a clerk’s eye making it out the door, and felt amusement at my embarrassment.
The plastic seats were notable, but how could they shock? What did I expect? A taxi-cab? I read his monitor, the “ms fang and mr. Pichardo arrested for shoplifting” typed in Arial across the archaic screen. The screen saver had been hilarious. Some cliché police mantra. I was reminded of a jock pep rally.
As I slipped around the back, I ended up just propping my knees up against the glass partition. I hated being left with my thoughts and the quiet hum of a car. I thought about engaging in stilted conversation, but ending up just holding my head tiredly in the same position.
I was strangely comfortable with the beanpole. After waiting in the car for about half and hour, he took me out for further questioning, suicidal questioning, etc etc. I was then put into the little cell with the non-flushable steel toilet. He got me two blankets and left. I tried to go to sleep because I was so bored, not caring about the strange prickly smell of the blankets, or that long coarse curl stuck to it.
I spent an hour of lying and worrying about whether Andrea would pick up her phone, and whether I could use my cell, since my technological dependency has erased all numbers from my head. It was hours of just humming silence, with occasional jingles that I strained hard to catch. They finally got me to make my one phone call, and on the second try; I was able to get through to a very groggy Andrea. I explained, apologized, hesitated, and overall made a fool out of myself.
“I’m so sorry Andrea. I’m so sorry to wake you. I, uh…kind of got into some…very deep shit. I got arrested.”
Big pause, and then “Oh…wow.”
Damn her and her cutesy Australian voice!
“I’m so sorry. IS there any possible way, that you guys could come over and pick us up? I’m sorry again.”
“Uh…where is it?”
Bitch. You’re my fucking cousin.
She didn’t even come. Her boyfriend did, the doting amiable guy, probably having told his girlfriend to stay in her warm mosquito ridden bed. Of course I didn’t care. Most of the things we bitch about we couldn’t give a shit over.
I do remember that the wait between my phone call and when the bailiff came to get us was ridiculously long. I took the toilet paper roll and immediately tried building necklaces, log cabins, tissue paper-men, and tissue paper faces. I was in hell, ripping out little smiley faces and eyebrows into the tiny palm sized square. Patience is not one of my virtues. Obviously, my idea of hell is being alone with just my mind for company.
We had to go to trial the next day, which was in about four hours. That was a sour surprise, to my innocent little mind, thinking that my bail money would have been enough. They gave us the speech, and then we could pick up our bags to go. As I leaned for my strap, I looked over at Juan, and a giddy smile rose to my lips. He looked shocked. He later told me that this was an “epochal moment” in our relationship. That he bragged about it as testament of my awesomeness to everyone he knew afterward. I didn’t think it was anything awesome. I just couldn’t help it. I was just so relieved to be out, and had been holding in this laugh for a good five hours.