Things You Stole

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...or somehow ended up with, inadvertently and wanted to give back, but felt funny about it or afraid of getting busted. Or not.

I have an orig. copy of of Gary Winogrand's book of photographs called WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL. I "borrowed" it from a guy I was working for and forgot to give it back. Apparently it's now worth hundred of dollars. I love the book, full of vivid 1970's NYC babes of all shapes and sizes and the guy I borrowed it from's an asshole who cheated me on hundreds of dollars of pay. What to do.

― sheepish, Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:53 (twenty years ago)

Log out and pretend like it's a huge fucking moral conundrum.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:55 (twenty years ago)

actually I was more interested in other things people value that they "stole".

― sheepish, Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:56 (twenty years ago)

I stole a book from a pub once. I've never read it, but it's still on my bookcase. I think that's about it.

(oh, no, I've remembered, I stole a glass from a pub once too)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:57 (twenty years ago)

Well, a secret admirer gave me a beautiful rare book, and when I tried to return it to the company, they explicitly told me to keep it. What's more is that I was explicitly told to sell it on ebay if I didn't want it, only now someone is going around telling people I stole it.

I don't steal because I can't afford to - if I came anywhere close to stealing, I would hear about it. But sometimes people give you things and then later claim that you "stole" them.

― Land Ho! (dymaxia), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

I stole your mom's virginity that shit was tite

― 7887938540758, Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:02 (twenty years ago)

I used to steal lots of shit when I was a bad person. I'm still a bad person, don't get me wrong, but I used to be worse.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:04 (twenty years ago)

I stole a pack of Fruit Stripe from KMart when I was 5.

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:05 (twenty years ago)

Your mom was fuckin tite thogh

― 3253254364577, Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

I had to fucking clamp that shit

― 3248632573895, Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

a guy from my high school broke into my house, stole a home-made Siouxsie and the Banshees poster off my wall and a 1960's University of Wisconsin sweatshirt of my dad's and years later after I moved out of town was spotted wearing it. By then it was silly to pursue it. Poor fellow.

― sheepish, Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

The only thing I intentionally stole was a tin of stupid expensive gum at starbuck$. I worked there at the time & was disgruntled.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)

I worked with a guy who stole 63 cars before the age of 18. He was probably the sweetest person I'd ever met at the time, "heart-on'the'sleeve" type.

― sheepish, Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:15 (twenty years ago)

My life of crime has never risen about a few instances of petty pilferage - a few candy bars when young, a couple of books when I was a college student, some office supplies as a young adult. Nothing at all for the past decade that I can recall.

I'm not proud I stole, but I'm not eaten by guilt, either. If I could go back and set it all straight by paying for it, I think it would be worth the hundred dollars or so it would take to square accounts.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)

Send me a picture of your mom g, i wanna clamp that shit so hard that i split my foreskin open

― 2186472674269, Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:21 (twenty years ago)

I stole two Crayola crayons from a box of 80 colors at Staples when I was 9 or 10. One was cerulean, the other maybe wild strawberry. They were brand new colors and I thought they were really beautiful.

I felt so guilty that I made my Mom take me back a few days later on some pretext, but I couldn't find the box again.

A google search reveals that "beaver" is now a Crayola crayon color.

― Laura H. (laurah), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

I've stolen a bit from my former employers, never from anyone else. I'm too scared to shoplift unless I know the employees or the security system. No guilt, fuck 'em.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

From employers: A mattress & box-spring, a café table & 2 chairs with coffee cups embossed on them, several beanbags, a duvet, a prop tv & vcr, a jazz drive and number of jazz and zip discs.

From stores (non-work related): some baseball cards and a GoBot (I was 6)

From bars: an elvis bust and roughly a dozen pint and half-pint glasses

Other random things: a new in homes box (which held cds perfectly), a large framed picture of a bishop and a giant wooden sea captain

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

I have shoplifted many many times as a teenager. Things like nail polish or lipstick or shampoos, nothing high item. I've never stolen a CD or a piece of clothing or something more dangerous. And of course office supplies, and at my old office I used to send personal Fed Exes and UPSes on the company dollar. I also once useed the company car service to take a ride from NYC all the way to the far eastern end of Long Island, and back, making the guy wait for the several hours I was at the party, a rie that cost several hundred dollars...and then told them that I didn't do it, someone else signed my name. So that was pretty bad, I guess.

The ashtray I am putting out my cigarettes in on this desk is stolen, but neither Tom nor I stole it. A friend of ours stole it from a bar and then gave it to us.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

When I was 6 I stole a bright blue key from the hardware store. It wasn't cut yet, it was just there on the counter and I could not resist it. I HAD to have it. It was blue, it was beautiful and I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I would sneak a peek at it every now and again and just put my hand on it inside my pocket to feel its shape. Later at home, I was playing with my new key and mum appeared seemingly from nowhere and said "where did you get that?" I started to cry instantly and we went back to the hardware store and I had to give the key back to the man at the store, say I was sorry and that I had stolen it. I haven't stolen anything since. I think this was a case of "scared straight".

― Wiggy (Wiggy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

i have this unexplainable urge to steal pens. i do it nearly everyday and the best ones taken are the ones i take in front of someone. i have a lot of pens. a lot. when i retire, i could probably open a pen shoppe or cart. that many.

― ai lien (kold_krush), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:12 (twenty years ago)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I had already read it, but it was sitting outside at Borders, with the other books they're asking people to steal. A bunch of other things, too, but this one really sticks out in my mind.

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

rjg stole veronica mars.

― bad man, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:36 (twenty years ago)

A friend of mine stole a super-expensive-but-didn't-look-it plaid lumberjack-type wool jacket from a big designer warehouse sale. When she showed it to her wise, witty friend Alison, Alison looked at it and said "You stole plaid?".

We've always found this hilarious, we must really be idiots.

― sheepish, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

No, I'd say the same. But I share a name with that girl, perhaps it is something about us and plaids.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:42 (twenty years ago)

I guess it's the number of years that have gone by and we can still fall about giggling about it that makes it so goofy. But Alison is queen of the zinger, so maybe others would find it funny

― sheepish, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:50 (twenty years ago)

blank tapes, cds, an optical illusions set of playing cards, a stuffed bendy Kermit, 300 bucks or so from a frat house, gum, a shot glass, addidas shorts, boxers, other trinkets that I've forgotten about.
it's pretty easy to steal from a store, even one like Best Buy that has many cameras and designated "security" personnel, if you're not a total idiot.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:59 (twenty years ago)

Cassettes, books, cash, porn videos, food, somebody's wife.

― Anti-Pope Consortium (noodle vague), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:11 (twenty years ago)

300 bucks or so from a frat house !!!

Tell me there's a story to go with this!

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:13 (twenty years ago)

A three pack of condoms that then helped me lose my virginity.

Not much else.

― ianinportland (ianinportland), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:55 (twenty years ago)

i used to steal alot from this frat house too! i mean its best to just go to parties but sometimes me & my friend wd be coming home at like 3 or 4 am and there was a huge plantation style frat house a couple blocks from where i stayed so wed just walk on thru, say whassup to the few that werent passed out or locked upstairs with lucky high school sophomores, and walk out with as much liquor and beer as we wanted. one time we got 4 things of schnapps, a 12 pack of coors and a big tall bottle of brandy in one trip!!

― 3, Friday, 29 July 2005 00:07 (twenty years ago)

the other 2 good places to get free booze is 1) football fans tailgating on game day, just wait til the game ends and go find dudes whose team won, holler the name of the state or town til they pass you mad bottles of warm michelob and smirnoff ice 2) condos or yuppie apartment blocks, just find one w/ an open porch or back area and a bbq set-up, usually if you poke around theres a cooler and you can steal good expensive beer like dos equis or hoegaarden, this is technically illegal tho

― 2, Friday, 29 July 2005 00:10 (twenty years ago)

From a used book/ record store in the Village, about twenty years ago, I found a copy of the picture disc of New Hope for the Wretched by the Plasmatics (it wasn't the cover shot, it looked like it had radioactive vomit on it). In any case, they wanted, like, a whole twenty bucks (or some sum that seemed outrageous to me at the time) for it. So, I slipped it out of its sleeve and slipped it into the sleeve for the Plasmatics' Beyond the Valley of 1984, which they were hawking for a mere five bucks or something. Walked up the register (the record section was way in the back), paid my measely five bucks and walked on it with it.

In retrospect, I've always felt bad about it. I'd feel guilty every time I played it (not that, in retrospect, it really warranted a great deal of playing anyway, but that's another thread). There are worse things I've done in my life, but I still feel kinda bad about this one. Like a pussy. Store's still there (though I don't think they sell records anymore), so -- conceivably -- I could go back and return it, but that would mean digging it out of storage, and that would be a heckuva lot work, so never mind that.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:16 (twenty years ago)

rjg stole veronica mars.

prove it

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:22 (twenty years ago)

I can't.

― Marsfan24, Friday, 29 July 2005 01:03 (twenty years ago)

V. Mars could tho, she is the best.

― Marsfan24, Friday, 29 July 2005 01:08 (twenty years ago)

alex if you DID take it back that would be awesome!! 20 years later!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:14 (twenty years ago)

Many, many staple removers.

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 29 July 2005 02:45 (twenty years ago)

Only thing I ever nicked was 20c coins from mums wallet so I could play pinball machines at the bowling alley while she was bowling.

Later, she noticed she had less money and wondered aloud, and I fessed up, and was feeling awful. Mum would not punish me (I think she thought it was funny) so I went into mum and dads room and got out The Belt and said I'd smack myself with it if they wouldnt. What a strange kid.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 29 July 2005 02:54 (twenty years ago)

I stole my flat's hose because my fould flatmates were pissing me off by washing the cars in the driveway early in the morning. It somehow ended up in the boot of someone's datsun sunny. I wonder if it is still there? But I don't regret that at all because these same flatmates had winnie the pooh and toilet issues respectively. And listened to creed.

I don't recall stealing much else, I lack the confidence

― Menelaus Darcy (Menelaus Darcy), Friday, 29 July 2005 03:13 (twenty years ago)

In my early bachelor days I rented a second story apartment and noticed a tv cable dangling outside the living room window. I connected it to my set and had free cable for as long as I lived there.

In my next place, there was a newspaper chute out by my mailbox with some colored sticky dots on it. I removed one of the dots one day with no particular plan and received the local paper gratis for the next 5 years. I used to hassle the paper boy when he was late.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 29 July 2005 03:43 (twenty years ago)

When I was about 15 I stole a girly magazine because I wasn't old enough to buy it and would have been too embarrassed to anyway. It was not a very good girly magazine, but we were desperate in those Internetless days.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 05:01 (twenty years ago)

Kids these days have it easy, now they have MTV and shit

― Menelaus Darcy (Menelaus Darcy), Friday, 29 July 2005 09:07 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I know MTV started in the early 80s but they didn't have such good spray on body oil and nipple tweakers back then

― Menelaus Darcy (Menelaus Darcy), Friday, 29 July 2005 09:12 (twenty years ago)

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