Back around 6th grade a group of us kids would go out to Taco Bell after school on early days (when we got out at 1). In the same shopping center was a store called Kids Club that basically sold all sorts of crap kids like to waste their money on. Think the stuff you trade tickets for @ Dave & Buster's but with a price tag. Anyway, one of these days we all went in after tacos and there was only 1 employee working. My friend who was a royal asshole asked to use the bathroom. Once inside he proceeded to shove the entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet and flush. As the water level in the bowl was rising he came screaming out of the bathroom and told the poor lady the toilet was overflowing everywhere. Once she ran inside to fix it, he started grabbing boxes of candy. Not bars, full boxes. Of course because we didn't want to look like pussies we all followed suit. I think I ended up with a couple months supply of my favorite delicious Gummi Bears. --- Not me, but a friend of mine. When he was growing up, his brother his dad, & him would do the routine shopping trip to Home Depot for home improvement supplies (this was before the beeping alarms were installed, like 20-25 years ago). Once the cart was full of what they needed, his dad would start yelling at the kids about some random shit and proceed to wheel the cart out the exit doors. They would occasionally get caught, but dad would just say he was distracted by his shithead kids and come back inside and pay for everything. From the impression I got, this actually worked most of the time.
In elementary school, we had a field trip to some Audubon Society nature trail. I was pretty amped up because we were going to Burger King after the field trip. Fuck the leaves, and the bug collection, and the fox droppings and stuff - I was getting me some Dr. Pepper...ON A SCHOOL DAY. This was in the mid 80's, at about the time when fast food restaurants first introduced the "refill center". Being the young capitalist that I was, I decided to bring my plastic re-fillable water bottle I had gotten at soccer camp to drink that shit for free. With the $0.65 that I saved on my soft drink, I went next door to Venture and bought a pack of Topps baseball cards, in which I found a Mark McGwire rookie card. I made out like a bandit. Literally. The only other thing I've stolen in my entire life was premium cable. Yeah, we got our hands on one of those chips you can put in your cable box to get unscrambled boobie shows on Cinemax. My mom would say that Cinemax stole her little boy away. I am a rebel.
Up until about two years ago I could proudly proclaim myself amongst those who have never, ever stolen anything. No gum or candy from convenience stores and certainly nothing of any significant value. However, as an adult (albeit with lots and lots of liquor involved) my best friend and I decided it was a phenomenal idea to steal a security car from our campus security. Less of a car, more like a glorified golf cart. In the middle of the afternoon after a solid few hours of day drinking we decided to crash our buddies class and try to make him join us for some debauchery. Instead of gleefully joining in he reprimanded us for being complete retards and had no interest in playing with us. We mournfully turned away clutching the half vodka Sobe we had concocted for him and began to trudge back to my dorm when directly in front of us a mini security car simply appeared. What started as a joke and us leaping in the front seat turned quickly into my friend slamming on the gas pedal and the stunning realization that the guard had actually left the keys in the ignition. We floored our glorious little vehicle onto the road leading away from campus, drunk driving our way to the Denny's about 1/4 mile away. After enjoying a milkshake we returned outside to our tiny car only to find it out of battery and refusing to run. Calmly we "wiped our fingerprints" from the steering wheel and began the walk back to campus to continue the party. Unbeknown to us, the classroom we had taken the cart from was occupied by one of my former professors and I had taken several of his classes. When the security guard returned to find his car stolen the teacher decided to helpfully provide him with both a description and my first and last name. It took him about 30 mins to find out where I lived on campus and arrest both my friend and I. Faced with a felony grand theft auto charge we did what any two girls in jail would do and promptly began to weep for our freedom. Stirred by our display of remorse, fear, and lack of any criminal record whatsoever the detective convinced the guard to drop all charges and the incident was removed from both our records. This just proves that yes, titties can get you out of anything. Even a felony.
I started not to post in this thread, because I stole so much stuff when I was in college that I am honestly embarrassed to catalog it all. But, I figured it'll be therapeutic or something. Among the things I took: - hot dogs from the convenience store - a bicycle from a rival fraternity - a (quarters) table from the dining hall - an empty keg (that I made into a side table lamp) - a freshman girl's virginity - a motorcycle helmet from KMart - a case of McDonald's frozen french fries - concrete lawn decorations In highschool, I had gotten pretty good at stealing street name signs - you just shimmy up the pole, and bend that sucker back and forth until the metal breaks. So, I stole a lot of those in college; street names for dudes in my fraternity, names of girls I liked, or whatever. One Friday afternoon, a couple of my buddies and I thought it would be hilarious if we drove to Washington, DC (about 8 hours) and back. I tried to steal one of the Pennsylvania Avenue signs, but couldn't get it quick enough. I got nervous and gave up. I like to think that all the good things I've done since then have made up for all my theft.
I've stolen. In high school, I stole yard gnomes. Black ones, white ones, didn't matter; if it was gnome looking and in someones yard late at night........I stole it.
In high school it was always a pain in the ass to find someone to buy us beer. So we just started stealing it. Then per the usual we got bored just doing that, so we made a game out of it. The rule was that you had to walk back to the beer section, grab a couple twelve packs, or cases, walk straight up to the register, look the attendant right in the face and scream WHOOOOO-HOOOOOO while you raised the beer up. Then run the fuck out the door as fast as you could while they (usually) chased you. After doing that for a while, we instituted even more rules. The driver would park the car about two blocks away, and if you dropped any of the beer on the way to the car as the attendant was chasing you, the driver would go an extra block for every beer dropped. I'll never forget my buddy running like hell out of a convenience store with a crazy Indian dude chasing him swinging a baseball bat, and him dropping a 12 pack of Bud. There were beer cans rolling everywhere, and he slowed down for a second, pontificated the situation as he locked eyes with the driver.... And then the driver screams out the window of the car as he peels away....."rules are rules motherfucker....12 blocks" I felt sorry for him, but it didn't stop me from laughing like an idiot at him as he was getting chased by an Indian dude with a bat holding on to the remaining 12 pack trying to catch up to us. Screaming obscenities the entire 12 blocks. I don't think I've stolen anything since High School though. Except for music. Everybody steals music. Right? Its funny how we've all rationalized it though.
You guys remember this picture (think last year's christmas thread)? That cage is actually a barstool I stole in a drunken stupor. I'm pretty sure it was made out of iron because that thing had to weigh at least 40 pounds. A few friends and I were stumbling home from a booze cruise and as we passed a bar, I just grabbed it, threw it over my head and kept walking....about 2 miles. All while discussing American foreign policy with Britishers (this happened in London).
I pilfered minor little things as a kid, a bottle of soda, candy, but grew out of it pretty quickly. A buddy of mine in college, though, was pretty compulsive about stealing shit and was unbelievably casual about it. I was always shocked at how calmly he'd just pick something up and walk off with it. Walking with him back from class one day, a big truck was parked and a guy was unloading those 5 gallon jugs of spring water. My buddy got off his skateboard, reached over as we walked by, grabbed two of the jugs, dropped them on the skateboard and walked with it along side him the rest of the way back. Didn't even blink, no planning, just saw the opportunity to steal something and did it. His favorite was stealing pizzas from the delivery guys while they delivered to the dorm. Inevitably they'd have 2-3 pizzas still in the car when they brought one to the front of the dorms, so he'd prop open the maintenance door, sprint out, snag the pizza warmer and sprint back in. On several occasions, he himself would place the orders for pizza to be delivered to adjacent buildings (not giving them a real phone number, of course). Not exactly grand theft auto, but to this day, I am appalled by just how casual he was about everything. I suspect he was a bit of a psychopath.
The only thing I have ever stolen was beer. A friend of mine worked at worked at a restaurant that had a fool for a manager and a nonexistent owner, being 16-18 we took advantage of this weekly. The scam only needed an empty keg shell. It was really pathetic and easy. All we did was put the empty with the others and roll a fresh one out into the bed of a waiting truck. The saddest thing was that we never got caught.
I bet the fact the disadvantaged individuals who shop at Goodwill are really sad that I took some shot glasses and some leather pants. Fuck, they must be devastated. I think stealing from a supermarket is a lot worse. It's not like there's anything of value to take at Goodwill. It wasn't expensive or anything, I just didn't feel like waiting in line. They're both bad things to do, obviously. This is the "stealing shit" thread, after all.
During the 2008 presidential election I stole over 50 Obama and McCain magnets off of cars. It started out as a spur of the moment thing but turned into a competition with a friend to see who could get the most by election day. It was stupid but fun at the same time.
Dear over-entitled dickless little shitbag, The entire point of Goodwill is to be a VOLUNTARY charity that allows people to purchase used and donated goods at prices below fair market value for the benefit of those who cannot provide for themselves. I am the most right wing anti involuntary charity person you will find, but fuck with something like Goodwill or the Salvation Army and I will come for your head. No joke, I wish your mother took the morning after pill after your dad accidentally fell and had his dick land in her twat, you are what's wrong with people.
I understand the purpose of Goodwill. They are a good charity that provides a valuable service. That being said, they lost $0.00 from me taking that shit. The "Happy 50th Anniversary Joe and Linda" shot glass.. the leather pants.. how much are they going to profit off of that? A lot of items at Goodwill are simply unsellable. In principle, it is a bad thing to do. But it doesn't cause nearly as much ACTUAL harm. The supermarket on the other hand, which I feel a lot worse for, makes their entire profit on markup. Let's assume that they bought the vodka for $12 and sold it for $15. Stealing that bottle results in a $12 loss, when they would have only received a $3 profit otherwise. They have to sell four more bottles just to break even. Yes, they are for profit, but they employ lots of people and generally make this country better. That's the last I'm going to say about this.
I hate thieves. I'll admit that I did a tiny bit of dare shoplifting as a kid, mainly out of peer pressure. The first time I can remember is when I was 8 and I stole a tiny die from a novelty store. I felt like crap afterwards. I am now completely honest when it comes to paying for things. A couple of years back I bought a PSP, a couple of games and a case. I didn't realise it until I got home, but I had only been charged for the case and games on my credit card. I went in the next day and paid for the PSP. The salesman nearly fell over and asked me why I would do that. When I explained to him that someone would have to explain the missing item come stocktake, he started to thank me profusely. For everything you steal, someone, somewhere will ultimately pay. When you steal from big chains, they factor the losses into their prices (either for direct loss or increased insurance premiums). So, every other customer has to pay for the shit you swipe. When you steal from the government (whether it's welfare fraud or pinching traffic cones), the people who pay tax have to subsidise that. When you steal from charities, you derive them of the potential profit from that item but also prompt them to implement better security which comes at a cost. Also, whoever donated to that charity didn't donate to you. Realise this: nothing appears from nothing, something will only appear from something. Every thing that exists is the result of some form of effort. Every time someone steals something, they are disrespecting that effort and denying the reward that is due from that effort. Unfortunately, the only way some people would ever seem to be able to understand and reconcile that would be to take everything they own, and dump them in the middle of a wasteland with no food, water or shelter. Only then would they begin to understand the value of effort of others.
The only good story I can think of when I stole something was during my sophomore year of college. I went to an apartment party, hosted by no one I know, with a couple friends and the keg ran out pretty quick, so the hosts were collecting money to get another as per usual. Me being cheap as hell back then decided to leave after having a few cups and not wanting to pay more for another keg and waiting for it to get there. So I walk outside to join my friends who were smoking a cig and notice there's a keg on the second story balcony. One thing leads to another and I end up climbing up there to check if it has anything in it, and sure enough it's about 1/2 full. Now, I'm a pretty thin and relatively weak guy, but I was able to muster the strength to hoist this thing above the 4ft railing and half hang over to lower this thing down. Everyone celebrated as it got passed down and I got the first pour, which was delicious as it was a free keg. A little while later I leave for another party with the friends. I come to find out the next day that the guys who live in the upstairs apt came down demanding to "talk" to whoever stole their keg. Seeing as I was already gone, the host decided to say it was some creep dude who crashed the party, which caused Mr. Creep to take a few punches to the face from upstairs dudes. I feel bad for causing the beat down on the dude, but I can't really do anything about it now...
My hometown has a long row of cheap hotels backing on some dense woods. These hotels generally didn't have a minifridge or if they did, the weekend warriors who came out from the city to stay there couldn't fit all of their booze inside. I guess they drank warm in the summer but this is Canada and in the rest of the year they figured they could put their booze out on the balconies of their hotel rooms. They did not count on the boredom of the local high school students. At night, or later in winter, the late afternoon, we'd trudge through the frozen woods until we saw a good target balcony, then we'd burst out of cover with our packs at the ready and grab everything we could carry off the balconies. If the target was on the second story one of the lighter of us would get onto the balcony by means of a half throw/half assisted chinup. From there he could throw down bottles, cans and cases to those on the ground or, for better speed, directly into the snowbanks. Then he'd vault down and tear back into the woods with the rest. We had a couple of weekends where we'd try to clear the whole row for a party or something, but by and large, it wasn't worth the trouble. We were never wanting for alcohol in winter.
It seems that these fall into two categories. Naive teenagers and drunk college students. I totally forgot that once I started drinking heavily in college I had a little streak of stealing aided by the courage inducing effects of alcohol. The first couple of blow out parties I went to I ended up with a couple of dvds each time. I stopped this shit after someone did the same to me a week or so after I had bought Scarface collectors edition. Shit fucking sucks. I also once nabbed a beer tap at a random house party when the owner pulled a joke on me by having his girlfriend flirt with me for a while only to drop the "I'd never hook up with someone so short" to the laughter of him and his friends. Those frat douches had it coming. It took me a little longer to give up the late night drunk ass food swiping I did at Jimmy Johns. Simple plan, walk in, bypass 30 drunk people in line, wait for an order that contains my favorite sub, swipe it at the other end while the person is still waiting to pay. My roommate pulled a similar scam at the other late night drunk food spot a few doors down. The last time I did it the orderer noticed it and confronted me. Two of my black friends, not aware of my hijinks before hand, realized what was going on and sternly told the guy he was wrong. He backed down and we left. I felt bad about it after that and stopped doing it.
After a large school event all of the committee members decided to hit the bars for drinks. Like normal adults do. Except we were 16, this bar was a ghetto dive bar in a pretty hood area and we had 10-13 ditsy, rich, blond white girls with us (along with 10-13 ditsy rich white boys, I'm half-white but, what the hell). They didn't card us because they needed the business, but the bartender, Timmy, was a good guy, he didn't overcharge and didn't encourage anybody to overdrink. It would've been a perfect first time at a bar if it wasn't for the screeching sound of the e-Jukebox being turned off suddenly. We all turned to Timmy, the bartender, as he yelled "alright, which one of you cunts stole the barmat?" No one said a word, we were all drunk and swaying but deathly afraid. "What?" said a bunch of us. "The fucking barmat, where we pour your fucking shots on. It's fucking missing." He was furious. "I don't think anyone stole your-" "It's fucking gone, and no one's allowed to leave till I get it back. Or I'll call the fucking cops." The music was off, the twenty or so of us were pissing ourselves and the seven or so regulars were staring at us with a drunken bemusement. In hindsight we shoulda called chicken given the legal discrepancy of a stolen barmat and twenty drunk teens. After a solid 3 minutes of awkward silence and tense eyes darting around the room there was some rustling from one of the girl's tables. The ditsiest, blondest, most west-coast, A&F girl of the group slowly drags out the stinkin' wet barmat out of her purse and plops it onto the bar. "We were just playing a game! Uh... to see who could steal it the longest.. uh I was gonna give it back" Holy shit, is Timmy going to bust a cap in her head? Are we going to get our asses kicked now? Nope. He wiped it down and said it's okay. He plugged the e-jukebox back in and acted as if nothing had happened. We left within fifteen minutes, trying to act as if it was just a regular ol' night out. And never invited the klepto with us again. As for me: I steal one sock from everybody's machine at the laundromat, so they come back and bump into other people searching for their socks and maybe find love in between them.
Don't forget the fact that Goodwill is selling that stuff partially to be able to afford to give the same underemployed and disabled employment counselling to get them to a place in society where they no longer need to shop at goodwill. But I mean, who cares right? They didn't lose money to get it on their shelves, so it's not as wrong. Of course, you assume that the time investment in making sure something can be resold / is fine to put on their shelves doesn't count as expending resources, so, er, thumbs up? And yes, the billion dollar grocery business is going to miss $12 more than a not-for-profit corporation*. Sure. (full disclosure I work for the biggest grocery chain in Canada and know a good deal about what our operating revenue is like, what theft costs us, and what kind of money we make per item sold)
We've since stopped, but in the first two years of college myself and three other guys stole some necessary shit for living that we are convinced gave us a good amount of bad karma. Walmart and some small department stores were the victim. The most amount of an item we stole were batteries, which we would pick up in the front and somewhere along the lines of the trip would get stuffed between the jeans and boxers. They weren't tagged, and as long as you walked out with someone else we would have XBOX supplies for a solid month. The most expensive thing I've seen stolen was by my current roomate who stole two north faces in a matter of 3 weeks. He walked in, clipped the electronic tag and wore the jacket out over the lighter coat he had on. To this day I really don't know how he did it. I stole a souvenir puck from the Winter Classic at Fenway for a Flyers friend. My dad kinda freaked (maybe I shouldn't have been showing off the puck?) but I knew the whole time I wasn't standing in a 30 minute line for that piece of shit that cost 10 cents to make.