Oh boy! I spent a year in Brazil as an exchange student. During Carnival, I was staying in a beach city and one night became exceedingly drunken. On the walk back to the place we were staying, I spyed a banner stretched across the road about 15 feet up advertising a jetski competition. Sheik souvi, thought I and immediatly tried to climb the wooden telephone pole to snatch it. Now, mind you, I have NEVER climbed a telephone before and seriously doubt that I ever could, but while in this state, I was unstoppable! Up I went, till I got to the bottom rope holding this thing up. I grabbed onto the rope, and started “bouncing” to get it to break, and break it did!
The first problem was that the other end was still secured to the other pole, and gravity is a harsh mistress. Down I went, the rope burning a nice little 1/8" groove into my fingers as I fell. Landed hard, but that didn’t stop me! Made a second accent of the pole, and did the same routine on the top rope. Same results, but now the grooves were 1/4" deep. My fingers started to hurt, as well as my tailbone, which I landed on twice! But I got that damn banner!!
I was able to yank it down now, and I started to roll it up for the journy home. Now, this was a beach town, and this thing was hanging outside over the road, and it STUNK! I didn’t even finish rolling it up before I decided I didn’t want this stinky thing!
I had creasote splinters all over my arms, legs and chest, horrible rope burns on my hands and a sore ass.
God, I love beer and Pinga!
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
I once “stole” a packet of tomato seeds. I was 5 or 6 years old. I put them in my top pocket in the supermarket and forgot to pay for them. I was convinced I was going to spend the rest of my life doing hard labour. At least it scared me straight.
That reminds me. Every year our high school has “Class Competition” and each class has a color. Whatever class wears the most of their color wins. Well anyway, Seniors were orange one time, and guess what one of my genius friends did. He got one of those giant orange barrels, cut the top off and cut out arm holes, and wore it to school! It was pretty funny when he fell in the parking lot. Good times, good times.
I too have stolen those yellow flashing construction signs. …Stop signs, a hammer, a nice toolbelt, a garden hose, bird houses, cigarettes, slim jims, tera cotta roof shingles off of a roof, chicken wire, an emergency exit alarm, an exit sign, pot out of a locker in gym class back in HS, …I could go on forever. Of course this is when I was a kid.
I never got caught.
As an adult : The cue ball and eight ball from Kahunaville.
The ONLY thing I’ve ever stolen was a pair of parachute pants I walked out of Goldsmiths with under my pants.
I was fourteen and obviously very very stupid, because my mother worked there, and could have lost her job.
The consequence:
Parachute pants on a chubby girl. I rest my case.
We had a birthday party for a friend of mine who was a mild kleptomaniac (she stole ashtrays from restaurants and things like that.) The party theme was Stolen Gifts, and the rules were no stealing retail stuff or from people’s homes. She got a duck crossing sign, one of those construction sawhorses (took us forever to figure out how to get the light to stop blinking - there’s a little hole on one side and the switch is in there), a complete set of Denny’s flatware, and from me, the standing Marlboro sand-filled ashtray from the lobby of the Biograph theater. I just picked it up one night after Rocky Horror and walked right out the door with it.
Consequence: much fun and giggles for years after.
Thsi was the smartest thing I ever stole, but it has a backstory: few years ago, my car was stolen from my (mom’s) driveway. The cops came when I reported it missing, they said “Yeah weve had some thefts in that area the last few days.” I of course asked them why they didnt alert the residents of the neighborhood, but I got a dumb look. Car was found a few miles away, with the wallets, purses and jackets of the thieves in it. When I went ot get my car from the impound lot, I asked if they didnt want it to ID the thieves? Nope, just toss it all. Theyd spilled rum all over the back seat and when it got warm, it stunk like rum for two years. I hate rum.
After I moved out of moms house, I stole the Neighborhood Watch sign.
A great big 10mph warning sign that had the number “10” with an arrow wrapping all the way around it. From the bottom of a very steep hill with a sharp hairpin curve. Next to a 200-foot cliff.
We even had to borrow a hacksaw from a nearby house to cut the thing loose. We hung the sign on our dorm wall with the arrow pointing to a hot bikini babe poster. Sometimes I wonder if anyone died as a result.
The Reason: I have no idea. I was 10 or so at the time, and my parents did not have a stick welder, so they were absolutely useless to me. (I do recall that I tried to light them on fire, without success.)
The Schmonsequences: An exceedingly sore butt. Grounded for (what seemed) forever. Extra chores around the house. Extra chores around Herschel’s house (the neighbor).
During my student days i was a complete klepto of road works signs etc. we even thieved a pub garden table.
our “crowning achievement” was, though, a bus stop.
It was about 50yrds down the road from where we lived and ever since we’d watched the workmen drag it off the lorry we’d fallen in love with it.
We’d wanted it for ages, but it required planning - it was bloody heavy, awkward to carry and there wasn’t exactly a discreet way of doing it (even the dumbest member of the Met would have spotted what we were doing a mile off).
Eventually, one drunken night we hatched a plan. With two look outs at strategic points along the road in order to provide ample warning of any approaching police cars myself and a friend managed to half lift/half drag the bloody thing back to our house and get it through the front door.
Our mission an overwhelming success, we celebrated long into the night - toasting our new living room feature.
The next day i went into town to re-stock our now depleted beer supplies. It was a sunny day so i didn’t bother to take a coat and quite enjoyed the fifteen minute walk to tescos as i neared the shop, however, the sky was starting to cloud over.
As i entered the shop it started to rain - not heavily at but as i staggered out after shopping, completely overloaded with heavy crates of beer, the sky was black and i heard the first peels of thunder.
With outrageously good luck a bus pulled up at that point and i gratefully dived on board just as it really starred to hammer down - okay i’d still have to make the 50yrd dash to the house when i got off the bus, but at least i wouldn’t get too soaked!
Some cool black tiles from a church bathroom. I shoved them down my pants. Then later in the day I was jumping around and one fell out. My dad took me back to the church, made me apologize to the priest, and then made me walk around the parking lot picking up trash.
When I was little I truly believed everything had a soul - animals, dolls, furniture, cheese wrappers, you name it. At my friend Rachel’s house a little pink superball (one of those little rubber gumball machine balls that bounce like crazy all over the place) sat on her bedroom floor for weeks and no one played with it. I felt sorry for the superball and took it home in my pocket.
Consequence: nothing. No one ever noticed it was gone and I never played with the ball once I got it home.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old I used to put raw green beans from the supermarket down the front of my shirt so I could eat them later. A friend was with me once and said it was shoplifting and I had images of spending cold hard years in prison for lifting green beans.
I stole a dog’s choke chain when I was about five. We didn’t have a dog and we were in a hardware store. I have no idea why, but I thought it was a necklace. Dad found out and took me back to the store and made me explain to the owner why I stole it and I had to give it back.
Let’s see… Some friends and I walked past a retaining wall every time we were making the drunken stroll home from the neighborhood pubs. We noticed that some of the stones were loose or even lying about. We decided to take some of them back to their apartment and store them on the balcony. I really have no idea why we did that.
We also absconded with a cardboard cutout of Billy Crystal for some movie promotion. We took that to make the cardboard Billy Crystal do unseemly things.
Those are the items I’ve stolen or been involved with the stealing of. My life of crime is really boring.
Ahh, blinkies! That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread. I didn’t just steal one or two - oh, heavens, no - I was a founding member of the Blinky Liberation Organization. I quickly discovered how to turn them on and off (as another poster mentioned, there’s a small hole in the side you can poke with a thin implement - coat hanger wire works well). Eventually I got to the point where I could remove any of the 6 or so different types of security bolts holding the blinkies to their barrels or sawhorses with my Leatherman tool in under 30 seconds.
The BLO, consisting primarily of myself and my friend Curtis, continued to liberate blinkies for 2 or 3 years at least. We collected as many different types as we could (there are at least two major manufacturers of blinkies, the “bodies” come in several different colors, and we saved as many security bolts as we could for “research.”) At one point we had more of these things than we knew what to do with. We had a party and gave one to everyone who showed up and we still had more. After we’d collected every known type of blinky and security bolt and had more than we ever could need we pretty much lost interest in liberating blinkies. But it sure was fun while it lasted.
My father in law - not me - stole a big stone Buddha from a garden shop while shopping with his wife and kids. He was getting mulch or something and decided on a whim to take the Buddha too. It’s been in his back yard for more than 20 years hiding in some bushes.