My mom made cakes, as like a side hustle back in the ’80s and early ’90s — like wedding cakes and whatnot. So, there was like a cake supply store that she would often drag me to and, thankfully for me, there was an aisle that had some cake toppers that were out, kinda there for kids to play with, was my understanding, because I’d been to that cake store a number of times and that’s exactly how I spent my time. There was a little Batman cake topper and a Superman one. Those are the ones I remember in particular, but there was a few others. My mom would plop me down and I would just go into my little imaginary world with my Superman and Batman and company, and she would go take care of her cake business.
And one day came along where I was like — my little five-year-old head was like, “You know, it would be a lot cooler — would be if I just took these cake toppers with me, took ’em home, then I could play with them whenever I wanted.” And so I did. Put them in my pocket, knew that I was stealing them. I was fully aware of the fact that it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I did it anyway. And so, flash forward to my grandpa’s house. It was me, my grandparents, my dad and my older brother, three years older than me. And we had this kinda routine where you had dinner and then after dinner, they would roll the TV into the dining room and they would turn on Jeopardy and watch Jeopardy and continue having conversation at the dinner table anyway.
And it was during this point after dinner, when I thought it would be smart — in my head, I was like, “This’ll, this’ll be fine.” And I thought it was smart to pull out my new toys that I had stolen and play with them at the dinner table, kinda low-key. And it was my older brother who saw that and he knew what he was doing. I remember being able to tell from the tone of his voice. He was like, “Oh, hey, where’d you get those from?” And I wasn’t ready to answer that question so I’m sure I stumbled, I don’t remember what I said, but it soon became very evident that they weren’t mine. I had been called out — ratted out, whatever you wanna call it.
And word obviously got back my mom — it all came crumbling down, word made it back to my mom and what she made me do is she took me back to the cake shop the next day and she made me give them back to the, to the owners of the store, who I kinda knew in passing from being there so many times. And it was the most embarrassing, humiliating moment of my life up to that point. I remember crying a whole lot. And looking at it from a 41 year old’s perspective now, I imagine the owners of that cake shop couldn’t have cared a whole lot less about losing these very tiny, inconsequential toys, but at the time I felt like I had, you know, put their business at risk with my maneuver, you know? And so I felt such great shame in having to give them back. And they were very gracious. I remember they were not nearly as emotionally invested in this whole situation as I was, but that was — I think — that was the last time I ever stole from a retail business. Or really, stole from anyone. And I think it had to do with the ramifications that I faced for what I did. So, shout out to my brother for keeping it real, I guess.