"Don't Go Smelling Like a Rabbit"

Chapter Four.

I used to steal in the fourth grade. I wasn't allowed to go outside to play during recess: I was sickly. I had several problems from birth including asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and, most severely, an a.m. with, at the time unknown/undescribed,(Von) Munchausen’s by Proxy Syndrome!

During the cooler months of the year, and while all the other kids in my class were outside playing, I was left alone in the gym with no supervision whatsoever, not an adult in sight, for the full 30 minute period.

So, to pass the time, I’d inspect the contents of the girl’s little purses they’d left there, and I’d pilfer a quarter from one of them.

Later, during lunch, my victims often came to me and said they'd lost their milk money.

Generous soul that I was, I'd loan them a quarter and then magnanimously tell them to forget about paying me back. It gave me an immense feeling of being: as if I were saying "you see...they won’t let me play with you but I'm a person of good nature and look how I give to you freely ...please like me".

Lesson: People love the reformed sinner.

One day I found a miniature pen and pencil set in a purse belonging to Ida Mertens. I kyped them. I gave the pencil (pens are cooler, so I kept that for myself) to my best friend: Clel Van Beavers and he turned around and busted me. He ratted. Finked. Squealed. Tattled. He turned me in to our teacher Mrs. Fuller, the most beautiful woman in the whole world, who then called me outside into the hall.

Her interrogation concerning the circumstances leading up to my possession of the set and my denials and protestations and repeated declarations of innocence were to no avail and naturally led to the principal's office.

Mr. Benthul’s questioning was intensely more stern. My claim of no wrongdoing was as vehement.

As a dodge, I said they were given to me by Jimmy Greenstone, a year older and in the 5th grade. Mr Benthul, Mrs. Fuller and I then went to his classroom where he was called into the hall and shown the items. He truthfully denied ever having seen them before.

Believe it or not I was thoroughly surprised he didn't back me up!

I lasted a good two more hours in that office that afternoon. In the end I admitted my guilt and was told to bend over for punishment with a wooden paddle kept for such purposes in plain sight on the office wall.

I received several swats all the while crying "That's enough" between my sobbing gasps.

Well, it used to work with the a.m.

The spanking eventually stopped and Mr. Benthul informed me I had better not ever be caught doing anything like this again or the consequences would be entirely more severe.

But I did pilfer three more times that I can remember. But away from school.

I stole money out of the neighbor Jones girl's purse.

At the YMCA I found a little plastic wallet with nothing at all in it and refused to give it up or admit that I even had it to a nosy little girl.

And, I, amazingly, wangled open a sliding door of a playmates's house while he and his family were out of town and stole a toy detective's badge and holder/wallet from his room. Nothing else. I’d spied it there one afternoon when we were playing and knew it would be the best thing I’d ever had to play with.

I could be a real detective with that badge! Why, I could even detect burglaries and robberies and stuff.

I did this deed in broad daylight without breaking anything. I just wiggled the door and it slid open! I went in, went to his room, got the badge and left. Simple.

I was never caught.

I remember feeling quite guilty at the time; but when I made up stories in my mind (should I be asked how I'd acquired the loot) I always absolved myself of any real wrongdoing because I firmly believed there was no Commandment in the Ten that said "Thou shalt not lie". I didn't know what false witness meant, yet.

I wasn't a big church goer.

That pretty much summed up my career as a 10 year old burglar.

I did gave it up. I didn't like the guilt feelings, no matter how much I tried to justify my actions.

LESSON: Everyone seeks attention in their own way.