Ask Lemmy

I nicked a LEGO winch brick from primary school and my gran made me take it back. Not a criminal mastermind.

When I went to malls as a teenager I would often get stopped and searched as if I was shoplifting. Was over 6' at 16 and often wore hoodies. When I started getting into cross-dressing I was too ashamed to go through checkout with it. So I dressed in nicer clothes then hoodie and jeans, and shoplifted women's clothing from every clothing store that ever stopped and searched me incorrectly previously. Part shame part revenge part kink.

The first thing was probably a set of earrings when I was a really little guy. I handed them to my mom when we got home and she was shocked at what a smooth swipe I pulled and we immediately went back to return them. So much for my thoughtful gift! Hahaha.

I also recall this thing at my very conserva-religious elementary school, where people set up a little market selling things as gifts and such. I was given some money to go buy presents for people, but nobody told me how to pay for anything, and I assumed it was like a big box store where you pay at the end.

So here I am like, what, 6 or 7 maybe? Going from table to table and just yoinking knick-knacks into my little bag. Nobody stopped me or otherwise corrected me. I still don't see anywhere to "check out"! I end up just leaving, basically.

Cut to me waiting in the lunch line and just getting straight up shaken down and accosted for cash by some authoritarian staff types. I just handed them the bag of spending money I'd been supplied with and I don't really remember what happened after that. Looking back though, those people were very mean to a confused child under 10, treating me like some deliberate criminal mastermind of petty-thievery lol.

In my teens, I stole some CDs. This was pre-napster. I didn't have money to spend bit it's hard to deny the importance of music to people, especially in those formative years. I only took 2 maybe 3 total, because the guilt walking it with the CD each time wasn't worth it.

To give you an idea of how much guilt, I don't like people offering me food... Because it was theirs and now it's not. The fact they offered it means nothing. (Of course the reverse isn't true)

Does software piracy count?

Ah who am I kidding, of course it doesn't.

My moms heart when I was born.

I am advocating for shoplifting but the only thing I ever stole was a small packet of seeds from home depot when I was 7

In first grade? There was this little Hot Wheels style car that could transform into a robot man. I loved that little thing. Top favorite toy in the classroom.

Took it home one day. I was too afraid to play with it, so I just stuffed it into the box with the other toy cars. I was also too afraid to return it after a while. I still have it, and the guilt over taking this thing lives rent-free in my head.

I stole so many books as a kid. The library didn't have books on Wicca and Paganism so I stole them from Waldenbooks.

Breakroom at my father's office had snack and soda vending machines, and also a change machine. My younger brother and I discovered the change machine was faulty, and would dispense way too much change for a dollar bill. We fed it every single we had (4 or 5 dollars between us) and got back $20 or so in quarters, nickels and dimes. This was in the late 1970s. $20 was a lot of money, especially to a couple of dumb kids. We thought we'd hit the jackpot.

Some loose change from my dad to buy lunch at school.

It was a red and green plastic pencil sharpener shaped like a dachshund. You stuck your pencil in his butt. I stole it from a desk in Sunday School. I stole from God.

A bottle from mad dog 20/20 from a gas station. I was like 15. Me and some buddies wanted to get drunk, none of us had fake IDs, and the weed dealer who normally supplied the booze wasn't answering his phone. 5 of us went in, my buddy Brian volunteered to be tribute, and he grabbed a case of beer and just went to walk out the door with it. While the clerk was distracted dealing with that, we shoved mad dog in our pockets, and then went to the register with sodas. Brian dropped the case of beer and booked it. It was a very smooth operation.

Didn't steal anything else for years, until I was like 18, and we were so poor that my mom and I started shoplifting out of genuine necessity, while waiting on her disability to kick in.

A newspaper.

Did not know it was stealing... I was ... maybe 7?

Up until that point in my life, I'd only ever been to stores or restaurants that had free flyers or small community newsletters.

First time I was in a similar small store, I assumed full, 30+ page newspapers worked the same way.

After being informed that full newspapers cost money, and I had stolen it, I returned it.

The store clerk did not even realize I had taken the paper, laughed, appreciated my honesty, and gave me a tootsie pop.

In 5th grade I discovered that my hand and wrist were small enough to reach up into 25 cent bathroom pad and tampon dispensers. I didn't really understand what they were for but I thought it was funny to empty them out whenever I saw them.

Nice try, corporate!

I used to put things in my vest pocket when I worked at Walmart and “accidentally” take them home. I was a twenty-something but I fucking hated that place and felt like I deserved more.

Stole some clothes from Hot Topic; had to remove the ink tags later by hand. I skipped school with my crush at the time and it was a rush.

In the first grade, I was bullied by a popular kid in my school.

Back in those days (early '90s), the cool thing was to have pencil grips. Kids loved to show off an assortment of colors and styles of them. This bully of mine happened to have a single pencil, covered from tip to eraser with pencil grips, which was his prize possession. He was always showing it off to everyone. It was rumored he'd been stealing them off other kids, but no one could definitively prove it.

When he wasn't looking one day, I snatched his favorite pencil with all the pencil grips. It was justice for all the times he picked on me in grade school. I enjoyed watching him frantically turn his backpack inside out, trying to find it.

I didn't get to keep it for long, though. A week later, one of the stricter teachers found it in my backpack and told me I had too many pencil grips for a single pencil, so she confiscated it. I didn't know any better at the time, or else I would've complained about her stealing my property. But it was already stolen, so I didn't really care to fight it.

That was the first and last time I stole something. I actually agonized over it for a long time afterward. I was relieved when the teacher stole it from me because it was finally out of my hands and I didn't have to worry about it anymore. I never stole anything else again; the anxiety of holding onto stolen goods etched itself deep into my psyche.

Also calling out my sister: When I was maybe 6 or so, my mother found a stash of candy in a cabinet of our kitchen; mostly Lifesavers. She asked me where it came from and I just shrugged. She then asked my sister, who was 2 years younger than me, and my sis immediately broke down crying. Turns out, every time my mother went to the gas station, my little sis would grab a couple rolls of Lifesavers and pocket them. She thought my parents would never look in the messy cabinets of our kitchen.

I'm pretty sure she never stole again after getting caught. She was a wreck for a while afterward and almost terrified of candy when offered.

Not that I remember but apparently when I was 2 yrs old or so I snatched a handful of very expensive wedding cake from a bakery display window while my dad was busy paying at the counter. He noticed when picking me up to leave and godspeed back home because he couldn't afford paying the now damaged cake.

The first and only thing I remember stealing was a monkey toy when I was 3 or 4 yrs. Went to a party or something at someone's house, there were other kids there and I decided I deserved that monkey more than they did so I pocketed it. My parents found out afterwards, they weren't happy about it but didn't care enough to return the toy to the owner. I guess it was a cheap toy.

I remember stealing small toys from dentists and pediatricians when I was little. Like, you were allowed to pick one toy after the appointment and I took two or something?

Unfortunately, I've also stolen from friends of mine. I was around 7 or 8 and wanted a Tamagotchi real bad but couldn't afford one because I didn't have/get any allowance and my parents couldn't just buy me one since we were tight on money growing up. Ff to us visiting friends and I notice 15€ on my friend's night desk which I just stashed.

Same day, I go to my mother, all proud, and proclaim "Look, I only need another 5€ to get a Tamagotchi!" When she asked where I'd gotten the money from, I confessed, realised what I did was stupid, and apologised to his mother over the phone. I remember crying real bad and promising I'd never do something like that ever again; she was really cool about it and wasn't angry at all which was nice. Felt awful regardless.

I did end up getting a Tamagotchi for my birthday so yay?

I’m told it was mother’s heart.

A prop gift in a store after holiday season. It was just about tiny enough to fit in my pocket. Imagine my disappointment when I tore off the wrapping paper and found a cube of Styrofoam. I was like 5 at the time.

My mom's heart.

I accidentally took a screwdriver from Sears as a toddler. Been stealing screwdrivers every day since /s

M:tG cards back in the late 90s.

There was a local comic book store called (no shit) The Funk Pit, which kept the mid tier cards stored in 3 ring binders full of those plastic card sleeves, and common cards stored in an "Inch Box" where they just charged you by the height of your stack. My friend and I would occasionally sneak a more expensive card out of the binder and slip it into our stack from the Inch Deck that cost $1.25.

There's no way we were the first or last to do it, but I felt kinda shitty about it for years after.

I found a porno mag my sisters boyfriend had

When I was a teenager I once started reading a newspaper and walked out of a grocery store, not realizing you had to pay for them. I was distressed and one of my parents called the store and explained the situation and we paid for the newspaper the next time we went in.

When I was a small child, I once ate a gummy between the bulk candy bins. When explained later that you aren't just allowed to take the candy and you have to pay for it, I panicked.

Neither of these were intentional thefts, but maybe they count.

A tiny dinosaur eraser when I was like 6 or 7?

According to my mom, the calcium off her teeth.

"My dentition was so great, but then you came."