When I was 13 my friend and I walked up to a convenience store after one of our school’s football games. We picked out some candy and went to the register and paid for it. It was only after we exited the store that my friend lifted up his shirt to reveal the super-long beef jerky stick he had wound through his beltloop while no one was looking. Quite ingenious, if I do say so myself!
Here’s something else dumb I stole:
Freshman year, I think it was. Me and about 5 friends were at this little restaurant called Smooters. All over the store there were these framed pictures of old cars. They looked like ads that the company would have printed in a magazine, and they were about the size of a sheet of paper. Me being the rebel that I was, I decided to steal one. They were glued to the wall, so I really had to pry that sucker off. It came off with a loud sound, like wood splitting, because I ripped off a sizable chunk of the plywood-type wall along with it. I still have it hanging in my room. It’s for a 68’ Thunderbird.
More flatware and glassware here - But it was college etc.
But I went to Epcot at Disney World - ya know those little flag pins they sell outside the various venues- for all the countries in the world?? Yep, they were $1 a piece and I stole about 25 of them.
I’m a bad bad person - but the pins looked really cute on my teddy bear’s T-shirt!
Well, sure, that’s the rational adult response, but I guess I didn’t see it that way when I was eleven. Or maybe I wanted my own copy. I forget.
“Thank You For Patronizing Wendy’s” sign
1960s-vintage “No Swimming” sign with an X through a sketch of a blob-man swimming (accidentally snapped in half while playing with it on the way home)
Traffic barrier with flashing lights and a stamp reading “PROPERTY OF WASHINGTON DC PUBLIC WORKS”
Floor stand advertising the “National Hispanic Republican Association” convention
Cleaning schedules for public restrooms across the eastern US
Counter display advertising life insurance for truckers
By far, the most stupid/daring: Wooden nameplate of a certain US Senator after giving a presentation in an important Senate committee’s hearing room (Congress was not in session at the time. I won’t reveal the specifics, just in case someone noticed this.) For what it’s worth, you are not searched in any way when LEAVING most federal buildings.
One time we (a friend and I) were at a semi-local mall browsing around in a Babbage’s when I noticed a brand new CD lying on top of a box. Curiosity piqued, I checked it out; after all, a new CD can’t be that bad. It ended up being Losing Streak by Less Than Jake, who I hadn’t heard of at the time. It briefly crossed my mind to just slip it into my pocket, but then I realized that A) it was a small store, and from that B) The person who left the CD there might still be in the store. So, I took the honest route and told the guy at the register about it, I didn’t get in trouble, and all was well.
Outside of the store, there was an unopened pack of Pokemon trading cards lying next to a fern, which I took.
Well apart from medical supplies, (micropore tape, kelly forceps or needledrivers anyone? I also have a 14 french Foley catheter…still in its package… completely sterile, ready to insert…why Im not sure… hubby sure won’t let me use it on him, and Im not really into that anyway) a few pens and post-its from work my theivery isnt too interesting.
Except the year that I was a revolutionary and stole history texts.
From the campus bookstore. Usually the little pamphlet type things, that cost around 12 bucks for a 48 page thingy with paper covers and staples in the fold.
I stole about 6 of them before I got caught, since I had neglected to remove the silver stripey magnetic thingy.
When the alarm sounded the girl checked my bag, saw the pamplet thingy said "Oh I bet they forgot to demagnatize it. Thats why you should keep your backpacks outside the store. she theb demaged the book and sent me on my way.
She never figured me for a primary source reprint theif.
But I stopped there. figured it would suck to get caught over an 8 dollar book. I then started my career in copyright infringement, and started photocopying everything.
But nursing school with its 2500 page texts cured me of that too.
So Im stuck with liberating medical supplies
One time I was going to the grocery store with my mother and we were in the vegatble section. We had just come from church and I was REALLY hungry and definatley convinced that if I didnt eat something within th next minute I would disintergrate into a pile of kid on the floor. So I smoothly walked over to one of the displays of food on the wall, facing my mother to make sure I didnt get caught (with my back to the veggies) and reached back behind my back to grab something. I swiftly shoved it into my mouth to realize seconds later it was one of those horribly HOT PEPPERS . Of course I couldnt get a drink b/c my mother would wonder why my mouth was so hot. SO I mad it all the way to the car, at which point tears were streaming down my face from my watering eyes. I asked my mother for a sip of the drink she had and even though she knew what I had done, she played it off and said no.
My punishment: The sheer agony of my mouth feelin like it had been attacked my a flame blower
Well, I take back my earlier post now that you’ve reminded me – actually, the dumbest thing I’ve ever stolen was a sprig of petunias. From the Canadian Parliament.
In my defense, I was merely an accessory; a guy called Jay from Winnipeg carried out the actual theft, and I suppose they were his petunias, paid for with his own tax money and all. Nevertheless, I suspect things would not have gone well if the police had found me wandering around the Parliament buildings at three in the morning with a bunch of government petunias in my hair, especially since we were making no particular effort to conceal the theft (if anything, I was doing my best to draw attention to it by singing “If You’re Going to San Francisco” as loudly and badly as possible).
I have since made a firm resolution never to mix drinking and visits to foreign government buildings.
When I was 7 I stole a cigar from the local old fashioned drug store. And I didn’t even smoke!
Druggist called parents, parents marched me back to store, and apologise.
Wasn’t this on “Leave It To Beaver?”
An X-ray of a dog’s leg.
Only it wasn’t exactly stealing. It was in the trash (I worked in a vet’s office. And it was the only thing in the trash can, so it wasn’t icky, in case you are wondering). The dumb part is, I probably would have been allowed to take it if I had asked, but I was kinda embarrassed about wanting it and I was afraid I’d be refused because of some doctor-patient confidentiality sort of thing, even if the patient here was just a dog.
But see, my friend had once told me she always wanted to cover the windows of a room in X-rays, kinda like stained glass. It was such a wonderfully quirky idea I really wanted to be able to start her on her collection, and was too afraid of a “no” answer to ask permission.
The friend did appreciate it in the end. But I felt bad about being sneaky about it. Then again, the getting away with it part was kinda fun. Trying to conceal a full-size X-ray film is a bit of a challenge.
In the late '80s/early '90s, arcade game machines were quite common in convenience stores. Within 6 blocks of my house, there were two convenience stores and a pizza place, all with arcade games. My friend and I decided that time spent playing video games was more time in the store, hence more time to steal, and more opportunities to wait for the clerk to turn her back. We planned out our daring thievery in advance (does that make it worse, like premeditated murder?) and pulled it off without a hitch. Well, almost…
Our plan involved me buying a large Slurpee and drinking it as quickly as possible while we played games. While I was drinking and playing, my friend managed to grab a display box full of Bubblicious and move it to a shelf closer to the arcade machine.
I finished my Slurpee and let my friend take over at the machine. While he played, I’d wait for the clerk to turn her head and stick the packs of gum in the empty Slurpee cup. When it was full, we walked home with the booty, happy and confident in the success of our brilliant mastercrime.
The hitch? The remaining Slurpee in the cup made all the gum a wet, gooey mess. We were so busy thinking up ingenious ways to implement our plan that we never considered this seemingly obvious outcome.
The same friend and I also had the seventh-grade version of a stolen goods ring. There was a store within walking distance that sold Gameboy games. They were kept behind a counter, but that counter was almost always unmanned. One day, on a lark, my friend opened up the unlocked wooden gate and slipped behind the counter. He snagged a game, slipped it under his sweatshirt, and we left. Score! The next time he went, he took two games. The time after that, four. The next time, a whopping eight.
We decided to unload them for a little bit of quick cash. I placed an ad for used Gameboy games in the classifieds and peddled them mostly to housewives and grandmothers. Since my own parents knew that my friend’s parents were very strict (physically abusive, even), I just told them that the games were honestly obtained by my friend, but that his parents wouldn’t let him sell them. Worked like a charm. We were devious little bastards.
When the calls kept coming in, but the games started running out, we decided to make another run. My friend’s arrogance ended up being his downfall, though. He was determined to keep doubling his total. He needed to steal 16 games that trip. I tried to convince him that it was too risky, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it.
As usual, he went in while I waited by the side of the road, a couple hundred yards from the store. 16 games would require two trips into the store. On the first trip, he grabbed eight games, walked out, and hid them behind some weeds that were growing out of cracks in the cement behind the store.
He went back in for the other eight, but somebody saw him that time. He was able to get as far as our meeting point when a man yelled “Stop! Don’t book!” If I wouldn’t have been there, my friend could have easily outran the guy, but he knew I couldn’t run fast and, while he would get away, I’d be caught. Instead, he turned around and surrendered himself to the security guard. I just kept slowly walking away and the guard didn’t say a word to me.
As it turned out, they decided to issue my friend a fine rather than prosecute him. Fortunately for my friend, the company went out of business before they had worked out all the details of the fine. He never heard back from them and never had to pay a cent.
I felt really guilty about the whole thing then. Hell, I even felt guilty about the damn gum. My stealing (and selling stolen goods :)) days ended when high school started. The adrenaline rush was great, but the repeated blows to my conscience were just too much to take.
The dumbest thing I ever stole …
I was at the bar down the street from my apartment, having several drinks with friends. When the bartender called “Last call!!” I realized my absolut on the rocks was still 3/4 full. Did I chug it? Leave it on the bar? No…something in my alcohol addled head told me to simply walk out the door with it in my hand, past the doorman, and stroll casually home. When I got home, my roommate looked at me and said “where did you get that drink?”- Of course I said “at the bar–where else?”
It never occurred to me that walking down a busy street , sloshing a tumbler full of vodka might arouse attention. The following weekend, I went back to the same bar, and got chewed out by the bartender. He told me I was lucky he didn’t refuse to serve me again, but made me go home and return the glass before he would let me order. I tipped him well forevermore.
The engine from a Vega. Yes, a Chevy Vega. For those that remember, they has POS engines in them. I was given a Vega race car but no engine. My father owned a wrecking yard and I called to see if he had any Vega engines. He said there was a good engine in a blue Vega parked outside his yard. I went to his wrecking yard and parked across the street was a nice looking Vega. I hooked it up to the tow truck, took it home pulled the engine and returned the body where I found it. This all happened on a Saturday with lots of witnesses. I put the engine in the race car and I think it lasted 3 races before blowing up. A few weeks after I took the engine, my dad called and asked why I didn’t take the engine from the blue Vega parked outside his gate, behind an old motorhome. Whoops. I went back to the wrecking yard and sure enough, there was a blue Vega but not the one I took the engine from. The car I did take the engine from was gone and I never heard what happened to it.
A " no trespassing, restricted area" sign from an airforce base flightline.
Either that, or the time when I was working at UPS, and a package broke on the belt. It disgorged thousands of small shiny metal disks all over the place. I took a pocketfull of them home.
When I was seven years old, my mom was forcing me to take piano lessons, and I hated them. (I absolutely despise Wednesdays, and I only recently remembered that the reason is that I used to have piano lessons on Wednesdays after school.) So one day I’m walking away from my piano teacher’s house, cursing my mom and her dark, twisted ways, and suddenly the crunch of the gravel driveway under my feet stops, as I stare, frozen, at the beautiful and glorious sight before me: a little G.I. Joe action figure sitting on the gravel before me! Of course, I realized that this wonderful toy, sitting on my piano teacher’s driveway, only a few dozen meters from her front door, had to belong to one of her kids (this was semi-rural northern Utah, and naturally she had numerous children under the age of 12). Nevertheless, the temptation to have my very own G.I. Joe was just too great – they had REAL JOINTS! ELBOWS! KNEES! HIPS! BALL-IN-SOCKET SHOULDERS! How could anybody resist? So I reached down and scooped it up and tossed it into my backpack. A furtive glance around told me nobody had seen my act of larceny, so I scampered off to the next activity on my roster for that afternoon: cub scouts. we were doing something boring, like knot-tying or rabbit-skinning or something along those lines, and during a lull in the activities, I pulled my backpack out from under my chair to sneak in a little quality time with my new G.I. Joe. I reached in, groped around, and found … a bunch of homework papers, a book or two, and an empty lunchbox. No G.I. Joe. I opened the top of my backpack up and looked inside. No G.I. Joe. I dumped everything out and went through it carefully. Alas, my G.I. Joe was gone. I couldn’t understand where it had gone – I clearly remembered putting it in my backpack, and my backpack hadn’t been opened during the intervening time, but somehow the G.I. Joe managed to vanish. I thought this was very odd, but I forgot about it fairly quickly.
Then, the next morning, my family was doing our daily scripture reading – I was born and raised as a devout Mormon, which is probably obvious from the location above – and we were reading the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon that day, chapter 14. So my dad started reading aloud, and the very first verse he read was this:
And the words just smacked me upside the head. That was why I couldn’t find the stolen G.I. Joe – my iniquity was so great that a curse had prevented me from finding it! I was petrified, wondering what other punishments God had in store for my sin. I walked around for days in terror, positive that I was soon to be hit by a car, or bombarded by a cluster of meteorites, or something along those lines. Nothing like happened, but for years after that I was convinced that the reason that G.I. Joe disappeared was literally that God had taken notice of my act of theft and had punished me for it via my own personal (bad) miracle. Fortunately, skepticism eventually set in and now I think I must have just somehow missed my backpack when tossing it in, sending it right back to where I found it, lying in a battered heap on my piano teacher’s driveway. Yes, I’m sure that’s what happened. God doesn’t just reach down and smite us. And even if he DID, he surely wouldn’t do it for minor sins like taking a worn-out old G.I. Joe from a driveway, or for writing levitous posts to the Straight Dope Message Bo@(#)#@&$)(#@* NO CARRIER
I know an adult who was caught, arrested, and spent a few weeks in JAIL for stealing FEMO CLAY!!! If that doesn’t beat out all these other incidents, I don’t know what does.
As for me, I’ve stolen numerous things for no apparent reason.
<b>A mariachi-themed garden gnome.
A “Watch for falling ice” sign from a local ski resort.
Numerous “Do not disturb” signs from hotels.
A HUGE display bottle of CK One from a department store.</b>
That’s all I can think of for now. . .
aged 11:
a pack of chocolate biscuits from a corner shop, and other assorted sweeties.( no guilt, ate them later that night)
1 pack of dino-cards ( think pokemon before pokemon ) ( gave them to a friend to stave off guilt)
aged 12:
a silver parker pen from a spar store down the road.
only saw the camera on the way out and ran up the road and threw the parker into someone’s garden. Lots of guilt and sure they had me on camera.
aged 14:
the clips off the wheel-chair swings at a park nearby ( only just figured out what they were. guilt now)
aged 18:
a couple of pint glasses( in my pockets), and a heap of shot glasses (in my socks) ( i ditched the shot glasses cos it was the beginning of the night adn they were diggin in. i took the pint glasses another time alte at night, and all was well, still have them, but they’re all grubby.( no guilt, i was drunk)
Consequences… none that i know of.
Spoons. Two from the Washington College cafeteria, one from Dickenson College, and one from the JHU cafeteria, one from Juniata college, and one from Alleghany college. Started at camp (the first five I stole), and I decided to keep going at every college cafeteria I eat at. Got 'em in a shoebox in my closet.
Once, I walked into 7-11 coming home from school, and there was no one there. Whoever was supposed to be at the register wasn’t. The opportunities were endless - I was really tempted to grab a case or two of candy bars and run. Instead, I took the whole stack of Slurpee cups. Then I realized my parents would wonder why I’d taken about fifty Slurpee cups, so I chucked them in some poor guy’s yard.
My personal favorite of pointless stealing:
My group of friends in high school would drive around late at night and steal reflectors that people were using to mark their driveways. Then we would redistribute them to other locations, resulting in several homes having quite a collection of colorful reflectors.
Consequences: None…unless you count that article written in the local newspaper about the reflector bandits after a particularly “high theft” night out.