I was in Kindergarten when I stole a handfull of modeling clay. Put it in my pocket. My mother found it and whipped my fat little legs with a belt. The leather belt was called
Brown Betsy. I returned the clay the next day.
No more stealing for me!
Things I have stolen..
A package of screws I took from a construction site when I was about 5.
I guess it counts when an item scanned incorrectly and the prices was wrong and I didn’t realize it until I got home.
When I worked in college changing oil I had dozens of rags I had left in my pocket and gone home.
I forgot to return a compass I borrowed from a wilderness ranger.
And probably the worst was I was given $5 from a friend when I was about 8 to order something from Boys Life and I never gave him the stuff. I think of all my thievery that is the most regret I have and I genuinely feel bad for it for losing a friendship, realizing thievery is sinful, even after nearly 45 years. I still think about how I could send him a hundred dollar bill but have no idea how to find him.
Thievery sucks. I am not a master criminal but I was a thief nonetheless even with petit thievery.
I had a friend who loved to steal. It gave him a joy he could not equal. It got to the point that he actually found an old abandoned underground entranceway into a university wine cellar (he worked for the university) where he stole bottles of wine from the 1700s & 1800s worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Suffice it to say the FBI came in, set up Surveillance, and caught him. The university did not press charges. They fired him & banned him from the campus for life.