Keeping with it....Stealing

Really, I have lived my life learning from the mistakes of others, picking & choosing which mistakes I would make on my own. Sometimes, I think that quality is a girl-thing.
Thievery...unacceptable by many, inevitable to all in one way or another.
My first lesson came from my dear brother and his stealing of my Big Wheel. He got busted & I took note as to the how's and why's....if I ever stole I would do a better job.

Shortly before or shortly thereafter, I accidently stole a piece of gum. My uncle had taken me to the corner store & told me I could pick any candy I wanted off the bottom shelf.
Oh, so many choices...bubble gum, lemon heads, red hots, jaw breakers.
I guess I took too long because the next thing I knew my uncle was walking out the door, calling for me to come along. I quickly made my final choice & ran to the door. When we got home, he told my mother that I stole a piece of gum. I had no clue what he was talking about. My uncle explained how I took too long, so he just paid for his stuff & headed for the door. He didn't know & hadn't paid for the piece of gum I was smacking on. LOL, I thought the mistake was his until Momma drove me back up to the store, made me pay for the gum, explain what I did, apologize to the clerk...and then, she had me pick up trash in the parking lot.

Since then I think I have taken something that wasn't mine two times.

Once in HS, I found a wallet empty except for a public library card. I picked it up & showed it to my friend, telling her I could take it to the library. She laughed, threw the library card away & handed it back to me saying 'screw that... looks like you got a cool new wallet.' And I did have that wallet for years & years. One night it was taken out of my pocketbook along with all of its' contents, which included about 50 cash and some credit cards. The theives got an additional 200 bucks thanks to the plastic. I just ate it. I felt like it was karma kinda coming back to me. That wallet was never really mine and I had always known I was using it on borrowed time.

Then, when I was in my 20's I took an old metal horse from the park. It had broken off its foundation and someone had propped it up by the monkey bars. It was about 2am & as I drove by I thought 'Hey, that'd make for great lawn art.' (What was I thinking?) So I stopped & hurled it into my vehicle. Years later it was stolen from me & again, I was hit with the pangs of guilt because I knew it was never really mine.

As a kid, I read a lot & I remember reading some tale about a kid getting trapped in the Smithsonian overnight & I decided that if I were to ever be a thief, I would do it big-time. I'd wear all black & be all high-tech escaping all kinds of electrical detection devices and I would steal something physically small, but very significant like the Hope Diamond or maybe Elizabeth Taylors' jewelry or something.

Well, I haven't done that & I don't guess that I ever will.

Instead, I just steal time... time, here on the computer, on this blog or elsewhere, up late at night with my dogs, in the woods... when I can, camping with my hubby and soon, down in the Sunshine State with my wonderful, missed family.

Stealing time.

It's like if I don't steal time, it'll steal from me.