As a kid I pocketed a keychain-size tape measure.
I love-hated it for years. Eventually, I bought one and left it at the checkout counter to atone.
Oh, sure, lots of times. I went through quite the klepto phase when I was about 16-18. I was a compassionate shoplifter, though, I only stole from big giganto corporations like Walmart, etc. NEVER from small, local businesses. Went to Disney World with a friend of mine once, between the two of us, over about a 4 day period we stole probably $200 worth of stuff. The most I ever got on my own was some jewlery from a department store in the mall–2 necklaces, together worth $70. But mostly it was just little stuff–if I needed, say, a bottle of asprin, why bother to pay for it when I can just slip it in my coat sleeve? Never once got caught, or even almost-caught. Don’t know why I stopped, exactly. Just kinda lost interest, I guess. I haven’t stolen anything in probably 2-3 years.
i shoplifted my very first item this holiday season. it was for my friend, ben. he needed the perfect holiday gift. i wasn’t quite sure what to get him, but i knew that i would know it when i saw it. so, a friend and i walked into a department store, past the men’s department, past the junior’s department, past the make-up counters… and there we saw it… a leg. it was perfect! we had to have it for ben! i took it down from its display where it was modelling grey pantyhose and black fishnet stockings, and put it behind a pole. i turned to my friend and said, “If it’s still here behind this pole when we return from the rest of our shopping, then it’s fate. we must take it.” she nodded her consent.
when we returned after nearly two hours of holiday shopping, the leg remained right where we had put it. both of us new at this shoplifting game, we stupidly began to look around for security cameras, and in doing so got the attention of the store manager. he followed us around for about ten minutes as we touched nearly everything in the store murmuring, “This is nice. I like this. Do you like this? No? Me neither…” Finally, he looked away. This was our chance! I grabbed the leg and held in between us and we quickly but oh-so casually walked out the store. no one saw us except for a little girl, about 7 years old wearing a red-knit sweater and braided pig-tails. i will never forget the look on her face 
Ben loves his leg. and it was worth it. but i can’t say i’d ever do it again. 
When I was around 6 or so, I stole a roll of lifesavers from the grocery store when I went with my mother. Later that day she saw me eating them. I eventually confessed and she took me back to the store and made me tell the checker what I had done. I was so embarrassed. I’ve never even thought about stealing anything ever since.
FTR, I no longer steal, and regret that I used to, and do not encourage theft, BUT…
This is a myth, for the most part. All increased theft does is cut down on the multi-million profits that Wal-Mart et al show annually, and doesn’t noticibly impact the prices of goods. Take Best Buy, for instance. Each store has a planned loss budget of over $100,000 annually. Of the remaining budgeted loss that is not actually lost in a year, 30% goes back to Corporate, and the remaining 70% is divided equally amongst the employees. All theft from Best Buy does is net the employees there a smaller bonus.
Theft does not = higher prices.
–Tim
I believe it’s called “shrinkage” altho I don’t like that term.
Yeah, Best Buy calls it “shrinkage” which also includes employee purchases for non-employees. They encourage you, nay, drill it into you, to rat on anyone who buys something with their discount for a non-employee.
–Tim
I also wanted to say that while our ‘shrink’ was less than one percent, the bonus was, gross, just over $500 for eight months. Net bonus was about 1/2 that. EIGHT friggin MONTHS at under ONE PERCENT, and we netted $250 each. From a store that moved about $100,000 worth of merchandise PER DAY. Thanks, guys. REAL generous.
–Tim
I don’t recall ever shoplifting an item, but I scammed free rides on the metro and commuter trains a couple times when I was a kid.
Well, see Homer, it’s not quite even that. Even if they aren’t losing too much money, they use the theft to justify raising prices.
Yeah, I work for Kmart, so I hate the big corps too. But I’m still not going to justify stealing. And like you said-they net the employees a smaller bonus. And it comes out of the peons…like me. So we get screwed-smaller bonuses for putting up with the crap people give us.
I only stole candy.
That was in the summer of 2000 in Amsterdam. We had 20 cents to live on for one damn week but we didnt feel like looting other ppls fridges, so we stole candy instead.
Makes for a good diet.
dodgy
Forgot something…
in Amsterdam when we were broke enough to have “stolen candy” on our dietary list we also ran out of tobacco.
We didnt really want to smoke our weed all pure, so we thought about stealing some tobacco from one of those tourist shops. But then this old, nice looking lady dropped an almost full package and I just grabbed it. She didnt notice she had lost it - and if she did - I already was around the corner then.
Not shoplifitng… but taking things that are not mine
I tore a page out of a magazine in a waiting room cause I thought the article was hilarious
(I put it online: http://www.horus.com/~steff/factshit.html )
that doesnt qualify as stealing if you ask me - but I always find it very unpleasant when I am in a waitingroom and the magazines are missing half the pages.
ash trays at coffeeshops - just to remember the place
paper tipsare for free in some coffeeshops, but they defnitely didnt mean me to take the whole tin…
I never pay the bus fare and only pay for train rides occassionaly
I sometimes bring cd s back within a week when I already made a copy.
What ya want?`I am a poor lil student
I inadvertantly shoplifted a rather expensive shortwave radio from a Fry’s Electronics last year. It was one of those really expensive items that the staff have to get for you from the security cabinet and then print out an invoice on the computer.
It was just after Christmas so the place was chaos and I ended up in a “returns” line instead of the checkout line. After nearly an hour wait I turned to the secuity guard at the front door and asked “Are all these lines just for returns?!”, he said “yes” so I just groaned and walked out the front door in disgust (now I realize that the guard probably thought the invoice was a recipt). I didn’t even realize that I still had the radio until I was almost home.
Ok, I am about to confess something, but you cannot tell ANYONE! K?
Back in highschool some friends and I made a late night food one to a McDonald’s. One of the employees left his headset on the counter. You know what I’m talking about? The ones that allow them to communicate to each other and to the drive through car.
My friend, drunk, put it on and started acting goofy. No one seemed to notice him wearing it, so he said, “We’re taking this with us.” And we did!!
Now for the fun part:
These things operate on some radio frequency and most of the McDonald’s in the area were on the same one. All but two or three, if I recall. Some had a newer system. Anyway, there are two buttons on this thing. One let us talk to the car at the drive through. And the other let us talk to other employees.
We drove around from McDonald’s to McDonald’s. As soon as we got in the parking lot we could hear the car, "I would like a Big Mac, a Mc Fish, a… "
“Is it ok if I wipe my ass with your burger?” Childish, I know. But so was highschool!
We would say all kinds of things to the customers including things like, “your total is 90.63”, “sorry, we’re out of that, that too, and that, nope none of that either, and so on”
When there were no cars, we would start talking to the employees. “Hey burger boy, what’s up Bee-yatch!!” “I can see you. Put down the pickles” And whatever else was on our mind at the time.
This fun lasted a couple nights until the battery died 
I wont even get into the time we almost left Busch Gardens with a baby Galapogos Tortoise.
Oh! My friend and I stole 90210 paper dolls out of a copy of seventeen magazines in the waiting room at a hair salon when we were about 12.
Junior high and early high school. Literally thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Mostly at a Hobby store a friend of mine worked at (at which I later worked at for MANY years and never took a thing without paying). I regret it, I couldnt imagine doing anything even remotly similar now.
Got caught shoplifting in a grocery store at the age of 16 or 17… scared the shit out of me… they let me go but I NEVER shoplifted again! Hell… I didn’t go back in that store for about three years.
I think i once took some bubblegum when i was in lower school.
Story: my friend “Byron,” here at school, is in the marching band. the band went with the football team to houston. the band is full os lushes, so the band went to a few bars while in houston. in some bar, byron and some other band member conspired to steal a 24"x30" Shiner Bock mirror that was hanging on the wall near the bathroom, one of those REALLY nice mirrors. ANYway, Byron goes to the bathroom, grabs the mirror, takes it in and leaves against the wall behind the toilet. He does his buisness and leaves. His friend was supposed to go in with a backpack and leave with the mirror, but the bag turned out to be too small. So, Byron goes in with his uniform garment bag, a hanging bag, like for suits and shit. He changes out of half of his clothes, to legitimize going in the bathroom, puts the mirror in the garment bag, and leaves.
The mirror is now on proud display in his room at school.
a candy cane off the store xmas tree. Christian store.
I got caught shoplifting when I was 13. I had taken a lot of stuff prior to getting caught; it’s a wonder they didn’t nab me sooner. It was awful: I got taken to the police station, put in a cell, and had to go to juvenile court. I was also banned for the store forever, although I did start going back in about 7 years later (when I looked totally different).
Not to justify what I did, because it was completely stupid and I got what I had coming to me, but god it’s hard to be poor in a school full of rich kids. Sigh. If I ever did have children, I would do everything I could to make sure they had some decent fashionable clothes to wear. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but kids are so mean to others who are different. (But I was still a stupid selfish jerk for doing it, no matter what the reason.)
In retrospect, I’m so glad I did get caught when I was young enough to have it be on a juvie record and not as an adult. Believe me, it scared the crap out of me and I never ever took a thing from anywhere again - not even a pen from work. I keep my hands visible at all times when I’m in a store and if I were to ever mistakenly be accosted for shoplifting, I would insist that they search me right there in front of everyone so that all the gawkers can see that I really didn’t take anything.
Thank you doctor, I feel much better now. Can I get up off this couch?