Everyone steals stuff. Stealing has an unwarranted negative stigma these days, largely because people conflate “stealing” with “shoplifting.” In reality, forms of stealing that do not involve taking things from stores (more specifically, things that are for sale) are far more common than shoplifting. To help unpack stealing’s undeserved stigma, I’ve laid out the three most acceptable types of thievery:
1. Stealing Souvenirs
When my aunt was little, she caught my grandma in the act of pocketing a hotel souvenir. “What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s just a souvenir,” my grandma replied.
“Oh. It looks very much like an ashtray.”
In my view, stealing souvenirs is perfectly acceptable. These can take the form of knickknacks from places you stayed on vacation, glasses from bars you visited, or clothing items from people you hooked up with. When I studied abroad, my souvenir-stealing took a disturbingly sacrilegious turn: I started taking prayer candles from every church I visited. To be fair, they’re usually free with a “suggested donation.”
2. Stealing Food
Here, I don’t refer to the dining and dashing variety of stealing food, but rather the poaching of baked goods and other treats. Are you keeping a friend company while she mans a bake sale? Better eat ten brownies. Did you happen to pass by someone setting up the snack table for a lecture or info session? That sandwich is yours. Did the people sitting next to you at Jo’s leave their mozzarella sticks unattended? Finders keepers.
During my one year stint as a girl scout, I had the task of going door to door selling cookies. Everyone else manned the table we had set up on the sidewalk, and I headed off with a few boxes of treats. Instead of knocking on doors, I went around the block, sat on the curb, and downed an entire box of Samoas in five minutes. Yeah, I didn’t earn any badges.
3. Drunk Stealing
This category includes examples from the previous two categories and so much more. When drunk people get bored, angry, happy, or hungry, they tend to express these emotions in one of two ways: crying or stealing stuff. This “stuff” is usually of little value (traffic cones, raw pasta, small stuffed animals) and is almost always taken from either friends’ houses or public spaces. So, not on the level of shoplifting. As a result of this genre of theft, I once woke up snuggling a heavy metal chain of unknown origins.
I would be shocked to find someone my age who hasn’t participated in each of these three types of thievery at least once. Lately, these forms of stealing have come to bore me, and so I’ve begun pilfering the “unexpected.” For example, I take pictures from frames and peepholes from doors. Probably, their owners will never notice these things are missing, but if they do, they will definitely be confused. My number one goal for senior year is to steal a full deck of cards, with each number coming from a different deck. So far, I have aces and queens. I haven’t decided if I want jokers yet.
Ed. Note: The Rib does not condone stealing of any kind.
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