"OUT you dirty thieves!"

There was a theft attempt in the candy-store. I did not actually witness the scene, but arrived shortly afterwards, creeping into my workplace on my night off to buy candy, only to find my co-worker pacing behind the register in a heated fuss, relaying the details to my boss over the store phone:


Three middle-school girls.

Three visits in one day.

Eyeing the same three jars.

Caught hoarding rootbeer barrels and Wax Bottles in their coat sleeves.

Eavesdropping on this conversation while filling a bag with Sourpatch Watermelons brought three questions to my mind:

1. Why do I insist on lurking around my workplace on my day off?
2. What kind of job am I working where Wax Bottles and Rootbeer Barrels are deemed crucial sources of income?
3. Why were these children so determined: making three failed attempts to thieve the two least attractive candies in the store?

While the first two questions were better left unanswered, I walked home pondering the third: Rootbeer barrels? Wax bottles? Did you really have to steal those?

First off, it should be understood that I am in no way a thief: moral obligations aside, the thought of stealing is a process that disagrees with my nervous system: the sound of the Wal-Mart door-alarm gives me a panic-driven headache, and the mere thought of having to burden my parents to bail me out of a Supermarket Humanities Office embarasses me beyond reason. Though I am not a thief, it is not to say I don't recall any instances where I have stolen, for I remember a rootbeer barrel incident of my own childhood:

* * *

I was with my mother in Shaw's, trolling three feet behind when we passed the "pick your own candy" bins: the wrapped peppermints, the bridge mix, the vanilla wafers, the gum-drops...I don't know what my thought process was at that age, but I felt a heightened motivation to swipe a piece of candy from the bin without paying the five cents. I had it planned in my mind: I wanted an orange fruit slice to savor slowly on the ride home, but as I bent closer to the bins, I felt my face grow hot and my hands shake: I grabbed the first piece of candy in reach, uncovering the sticky contents later to find that it was not a coveted fruit slice, but rather a Rootbeer Barrel: I hated Rootbeer Barrels.
While hiding the Rootbeer Barrel in the nook of the car door, I realized it was not the idea of eating the candy that gave me satistfaction, and it wasn't until my mother found the Rootbeer Barrel two weeks later that I noticed my attachment to this melted gem: she peeled it from the door. Blamed Stephen for never cleaning up after himself. And threw it in the snow.

***

I think about the three girls. I undoubtebly feel annoyed towards their persistence to steal something as trivial as candy, yet I also feel a strange pity as I envision my co-worker denouncing them from the store. Their victorious scheme had failed, and as I picture them emptying their sticky pockets in devestation, I see my own Rootbeer Barrel melting in a heap of snow: all credit for the thieving process pinned on my brother Stephen's laziness.