A Guest Post By The Thief
I used to be a thief. Let me tell you my story.
As a child I always played by my own rules. My mother would often say that I danced to the beat of a different band. A different drum was not enough to describe my differences, no, I needed a full band.
My career as a thief started when I was about 5 years old. At-least, that was the first time I remember recognizing that I was a thief. Perhaps I started earlier, but it just did not have the same impression on myself. I was taken to the doctors office, and after the visit, we had to buy some medicine from the pharmacy/gift-shop. This was a normal activity at the time, and I decided to walk around the store and explore. At some point, I found a rack of key-chains, and one of them was a “working” pirate gun. An old dragoon. I played with it and when it was time to go, my mother called me and I ran out of the store as instructed. When I got into the car and my mother asked me how I was feeling, I was about to answer “Great, this new toy is lots of fun.” But I stopped myself, because it dawned on me, that I had not asked my parents if I could have this toy key-chain, nor did we go to the front of the store and buy it. I realized suddenly that I had -stolen- this toy. I debated if I should tell my parents so they could return it. However, I did not feel it was fair to make them turn around and ruin their day. This is important for later, but I was very big on the idea of fairness. If something wasn’t fair, I’d make a big fuss about it. So I kept the toy and marveled at how easy it was to accidentally steal something.
Time went on, I lived a normal life, but every once in a while I would see something that I liked, but would not be allowed to have it, or I saw something laying around “just asking to be taken.” I would steal little things, like coins and cheap Chinese toys, or I would steal toys from my friends and return it back later. I never got caught stealing anything. There were two reasons for this. 1) I learned early on by example, that people got in trouble when they looked guilty. Kids running away from smashing a window always got caught. Thieves and bad guys in movies always run away from the police. However, if you didn’t look guilty, nobody looked twice. 2) I never actually felt guilty about stealing anything. I always had a good reason to take the item, and if anyone ever seemed sad that something was gone, I would return it to them in the same way I took it. All without them noticing.
By the time I was in my tweens, I was got pretty good at this stealing thing. I remember one time my friend had gotten caught for trying to steal a leather jacket from a department store. It was his first time stealing anything, and I was surprised that he got caught or found it difficult. To me, only people who tried robbery (with a weapon) or felt guilty about stealing, ever got caught. His punishments meant nothing to me. I even used my gift of stealing to get girls gifts in my school. They thought I was the nicest person and that I must have rich parents. It felt really good to be a thief, and the best part was that nobody knew it.
Eventually, I got really close to some of the girls that I would steal things for and I had to confess to them that I did not buy them gifts, but rather I stole them. At first she did not believe me. She was shocked, and was certain I was just making up stories. We were at an amusement park at the time, and so I told her that I would show her how easy it is to steal things, and that people really don’t care if something is stolen or not. I asked her what she wanted me to steal, and she pointed to one of those invisible dog walking leashes saying that it was too large to hide in my shirt, and so I would never get away with it. I accepted the challenge happily. I explained to her my two theories about stealing, and calmly and casually walked up to the store, took the leash and left the building, pointed out to some strangers how fun the toy was, and danced loudly back to the girl I was with. She could not understand it. And I explained again, that if act as if you are doing nothing wrong, nobody else will think you are doing anything wrong either. Being a thief was not about wearing black clothing and sneaking around, it did not require any magical sleight-of-hand skills. All that was needed was confidence, and an awareness of how well protected an item was from being stolen. In my mind, if the owner did not make it difficult for me to steal the item, then obviously they did not mind if it was stolen in the first place. At the end of the day, she asked me to throw the leash away and I did, not thinking anything of it. It didn’t really fit in the car anyway.
Years later, there was another girl. I was in the store with her, and she wanted some glow in the dark thing. Can’t remember what it was exactly, but I otherwise remember this incident clearly because it was the first time I ever had to justify my theft to another person. I told her I would buy it for her , but when I looked at the price tag it was much more than I thought it should cost. I was outraged. I turned to her and said that this was not fair. The item probably cost $0.05 to make, and they were selling it for over $2.00! This injustice could not go unpunished. And so I stole the item for her, and a few other items that one might find at a rave or in a room with a black light. This girl, unlike the other one, was really upset with me. She would not stand for me stealing things. She told me I had to go back and return the items, and if I wasn’t willing to pay for the item then we were best not having them. And so this resulted in a long conversation between the girl and myself. Here is a summary of the conversation.
She told me that stealing was wrong, because if everybody stole, nobody would make anything. I replied, that the store was stealing from everybody who paid so much for those items, and I was restoring justice by stealing back. Besides, not everybody has the guts to steal I had learned, and so I was not worried that everybody was going to go around stealing. She responded by asking me how I would feel if my stuff was stolen. I told her that my stuff doesn’t get stolen, because I look out for it, and if it does get stolen, its probably because I didn’t mind if it got stolen anyway. The conversation ended, and I was never able to be really friendly with her again after that. It was the only time in my life I regretted being a thief, because I thought I had a chance to be with her otherwise. (As an aside years later my first and favorite car stolen. I was surprised when I was only upset that I had no way to get to and from school and was not upset about the theft itself. In fact I felt like I deserved it, and felt good at having ‘Divine Justice’ thrust upon me.)
A few months after these incidents, I started to learn more about Judaism and to study it seriously and my career as a thief came to an end. While I never planned any heists, nor did I steal any cars or get involved with gangs, I definitely stole thousands of dollars worth of junk. Anything that was overpriced, not worth my money, or was to be given to other people was stolen. I was doing the world a service and using my god given talents to restore justice and balance in the world. I felt good about myself, and was impressed with my talents.
Read About How The Thief Turned It All Around In Part II.
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