Blue Light Special

Like most young teens, the mall was a favorite hangout for my friends and me. K-Mart was where we shopped, perused, bought soft pretzels and slurpees, or pulled pranks by losing one another then reporting each other lost at the customer service desk so we could embarrass each other by being paged. K-Mart would also be the first place I got caught shoplifting.

I’m not proud of this, especially since so many suffered for a pack of fruit striped gum.

I was in the eighth grade and hanging out at K-mart with my friends, Maureen, Ann Marie, Kathy, and Lois. I think we had just picked up our engraved friendship bracelets from the Jewelry Bazaar across the way. My younger sister, Andrea was with us too. It was a shameful experience but wouldn’t have been as bad if my little sister wasn’t with us. After all I was the oldest. I should know better.

I had shoplifted before with a different group of friends so it wasn’t like I was hanging with the “wrong crowd.” After school in 5 th and 6 th grade we’d go to Jack’s Variety and steal ice cream. The kind of ice cream that’s individually wrapped on a stick and fits nicely down the front of your pants. Then we had the audacity to walk down a narrow alley that led to the back of the store where we would eat our hot yet frozen items. We became brazen with our pilfering capabilities and started working in teams as I held my draw string bag open while Lee dropped a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi into it. We knew the family operated business was onto us when one day some employees were stationed at the ice cream chest reading The Woburn Daily Times. That’s ok, Zayre was down the street and soon enough we had outgrown our collective sweet tooth. We were a little older, and onto bigger and better things…make up! It was simple you pick out whatever make-up you want as if you’re going to buy it. Then you go to the bathroom, go in a stall, take the compact, lipstick, mascara out of the packaging and put it in your cosmetic bag. When that’s done you simply hide the packaging at the bottom of the trash. This was not my strategy but my friend Ann Marie’s. She taught me everything I knew.

So this one particular day we’re at K-Mart and the desire came over me. My friends and sister were at the check out line buying something. And staring me in the face was that fruit striped zebra beckoning me to put him in my pocket. Against my better judgment I did. On the way out of K-mart I guess I wanted to impress my teacher, Ann Marie. I leaned in and whispered my secret to her while I ever so slightly opened my coat pocket so she could have a peek. Again, we were bold and sat at a bench right outside the store. Perhaps my strategy was that no guilty thief would just plunk himself or herself right outside the scene of the crime. My strategy failed me. Because no sooner was I sitting pretty when I woman with short, dark hair, glasses, and a mustache marched right up to me and asked me to come with her. I followed her past the pretzels, the men’s shirts, and the sporting goods department all the way to the back of the store and through the metal, swinging, double doors. I was trembling. What would be behind those doors? Nothing that looked as good as the new Cheryl Tiegs line in the Misses department, that’s for sure. It was dark and dank and her office was worse. I just remember a lot gray cement. It was cold just like her. She began to interrogate me. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went. I was too focused on her dark mustache and worried that she was undoubtedly going to call the police. I know I pleaded with her that I would pay the .35 cents for the pack of gum. This was so embarrassing. If I was going to get caught for stealing at least I could’ve stolen something worthwhile like mascara, something with at least a 3-digit value. She wouldn’t budge. She had strong morals and values. She picked up the phone to make a call. Who was she calling, the FBI? I started to cry. I asked for a tissue. She handed me some brown paper towels, the kind that came in a roll you’d find in elementary school bathrooms. They were about as soft as a brown paper bag. I wiped my tears and exfoliated. This woman didn’t have a sensitive bone in her lesbian body. I wasn’t going anywhere until she notified my mother. This is the part of the conversation I do remember.

“What’s your home phone number?”

“My mother’s not home.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s at the hairdresser’s”

“What hairdresser?”

“Tony’s in Medford.”

Wouldn’t you know she pulled out the yellow pages. She found the number and called Tony. Tony put my mother on the phone and the store detective told her of my crime and that I would not be released until she came to get me. My mother was pissed. Things were getting worse by the minute. Now everyone at Tony’s salon knew that Pat’s daughter was a thief including Tony. He did my hair too. How could I ever face him again? Now my mother has rollers and perm solution in her hair and has to sit for the next hour or so with the knowledge that her daughter is being held at K-mart without bail. This wasn’t going to make her look good in front of the other clientele. Meanwhile, my sister and friends are waiting for me and I’m picturing my sister in tears while my friends try and console her. What have I done? Life really can change on the turn of a dime.

The female detective/security guard put the phone down and informed me that my mother could not come get me because she was in the middle of a perm. For a split second I liked her because I had to admire that she could tell me that with a straight face. I guess she was able to because she was peeved. Her plan was foiled. She wanted me to suffer a consequence and my mother wasn’t in a position to back her up. I felt a little bit of satisfaction that this woman wasn’t getting what she wanted. Then she picked up the phone again. She dialed my grandmother. Tony did her hair too. Damn her! Not my grandmother! Now that was low. What is your mission woman? You’ve made your point. Your job and life suck so bad that you have to interfere with the lives of a mother, a sister, friends, a grandmother, and hairdressers and their clientele over a pack of gum, instead of getting to the root of the problem, which lies within me. Oh yeah, you didn’t make me steal, you’re just doing your job and I have to hand it to you, you’re very thorough. Your bedside manner blows though. You’re right; nobody would be in this position if I had resisted temptation. And oh what a temptation, fruit striped gum, whose flavor lasts all of 5 seconds! Maybe if I had been able to answer her question as to why I stole the gum, she would have let me go. But my answer was “I don’t know”. Like most children, that was my answer for 99% of the questions anyone asked me at that time. Maybe she would have forgiven me had I been honest with her. But in the 8 th grade I wasn’t able to be honest with myself. It’s still a challenge for me.

Therefore, I wasn’t going home without adult supervision. Infact, my grandmother would be driving all the way from Beverly, a half hour away, to pick me up. It was dark outside when she pulled up in front of the mall in her beige Ford Escort, dark like the underbelly of K-Mart and the store detective’s features, and my somber mood. My grandmother was everything to me and I felt horrible shattering her illusions of me. The ride home was silent. When we got inside the house, she asked me gently if I had the money to buy the gum. I said yes. No further questions were asked. She said she was disappointed in me. She didn’t need to say anything else. That was the only sentence I needed. And that would be the end of my shoplifting days…until of course I became of drinking age. That’s when I moved onto to bigger and better things like stealing like bar stools in New York City.

“Why did you steal a bar stool Debbie and take it on a bus ride for 80 blocks only to forget it outside a deli while you stole a can of Beefaroni?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I guess because it’s fun to see what you can get away with.”

Grandma, I hope you can forgive me. I know it’s disappointing. But come on it’s slightly impressive isn’t it? Look at it this way. Maybe I saved one person from falling off a bar stool that night.