i didn't mean to be a thief

by Lily

​I swear it was unintentional. I’m not the most angelic child in the world, and definitely not in
my own house compared to my eleven year old brother, but I’d never steal beyond putting
lemonade in my water cup at Panera. That stuff’s expensive, okay.

       It was a harmless trip to Target with my boyfriend, Andrew, to buy some clothes. After
perusing through the women’s section, perusing through it again and then perusing through it a
third time in case I missed anything we ended with a stack of blouses, sweaters, and leggings in my
boyfriend’s arms, which included copies of the same outfit in different sizes in case I needed it. He
followed me to the fitting room and I took the clothes from him to hang up and-
       “Wait.” My eyes snap up to the employee standing next to the ‘I didn’t want this outfit’ rack.
       “How many is that?” I looked down and counted through the hangers.
       “Eleven.”
       “You can’t have that many in there,” she said. Fine. I looked up at my boyfriend and he took
half of the clothes back so I turned my head back to the employee, who nodded in approval. Yeah,
whatever, Mary Anne. I tried on the gray hoodie first, which was excitingly fluffy. It was the fastest
decision I’ve ever made to buy an outfit. I tried a few more things on, including leather leggings
since I was going to be Sandy for Halloween, a dandelion yellow blouse with white blossoms on it,
and a striped long sleeve top.
       I put the leggings back on the rack because I knew my mom would be willing to buy them
for me next time we went shopping together. (We love not paying for ourselves!) but I decided to
keep the first other clothes I tried on. The ones my boyfriend held all had something wrong with
them, but in his words, I’m just “too picky.” Giving the clothes I was going to buy back to him, we
meandered through the rest of Target, browsing the speakers since my pink one won’t connect to
my phone anymore,  playing with the Halloween decorations in spirit of my favorite holiday:
Christmas, obviously, brushing my finger against all the too expensive ($40??) fluffy white blankets,
and browsing the sock section, picking up a few as I passed them. When we got ourselves to the
cashiers I walked past them and stood in line for self checkout. “Um, what are you doing? That line
is shorter,” he pointed to line 5.
       “Yeah, but I’m trying to save myself the embarrassment of paying like $30 in one dollar bills.
It’s not my fault the lady I babysit for pays me in only ones.” He laughed, because I’m honestly
hilarious, and went up to the last self checkout station after the guy using it left. I scanned my outfits
and pile of socks, watching the total add up to over $90.
       “Uh, do you even have enough money on you for this?” Andrew tapped at the 90 on screen.
       “Yeah, lemme put some of this back,” I said, tapping the X on the screen and rummaging
through the plastic bag I put the clothes in, choosing to get rid of the blouse and striped shirt. An
old woman walked over with a teenage guy.
       “Accidentally double scanned something?” she asked and started typing in her employee
code.
       “No, I just changed my mind on these two,” I pointed at the top names on screen.
       “Okay, I’m training him, so this might take an extra minute,” she nodded over to the boy
standing awkwardly. She positioned him in front of the screen and with a slow hand he went
through removing the two tops and I watched the total sink back down to around $50. Thank God.
The woman walked back to the front of the self checkout section and I paid, taking the bag and
leaving.
       First of all, that lady forgot to take the tops so it isn’t even my fault. Secondly, their stupid
alarm didn’t even go off, so for anyone plotting to steal from Target, don’t bother with disabling
those things. And it isn’t like I intended to steal either. I didn’t even notice until I got home.
Speaking of, when I did get home it was a big moral debate on whether or not I should return the
shirts. Typing in a groupchat with my friends I weighed the pros and cons of returning them. Cons:
it would be embarrassing to have to admit to accidental theft, corporations suck so I should just
keep them, it was money well not spent, and  I liked and wanted the shirts anyway. Pros: morally it
was the right choice, I would feel guilty every time I wore them, what if they approached me about it
the next time I went to Target?
       But anyway, those two shirts are still hanging in my closet, price tags dangling from the
sleeves.
​