Petty Thievery: It’s Everywhere You Go>Act One

Petty thievery; it’s everywhere you go…in the workplace, in the supermarket, on the Internet, at the post office, in the coffeehouse...well everywhere and I mean everywhere!

Stealing is nothing new, but acknowledging that it is happening and what one intends to do about it, instead of harboring these actions, are two different matters altogether.

Believe you-me, I’m no saint, I’m as guilty as the rest of the bunch, but no one it seems wants to own up to their responsibilities or consequences; at least I can admit to it, but I still ask, how many others can?

But it's not pickpocketing, muggings bank heists or jewel theives that I'm speaking of or referring to, rather it's pure and simply put; petty theivery in modern times, mid-to-late 20th Century, early 21st Century style, that is.

In the workplace, people steal all sorts of stuff like pens, pencils and other office supplies, but not necessarily in big globs, but in tiny caches, so no one really notices it gone, just as long as long as it’s being used, is all that really matters.

At the supermarket, it’s a little more complex because it involves unsupervised children that not all parents realize they have and I don’t mean all children, I mean the child who pockets a candy bar or rips open a box of cereal to get that plastic super-duper prize out of the box and just leaves it behind in a mess.

Parents don’t often find out about it until much later and as far as blame goes, whose fault is it, anyway? Certainly not the child, for the child learns from his/her parents who are supposed to teach the child right from wrong, left from right. Yep, but those kind of parents tend to schluff it off and blame it on the media, while in the meantime, the child will have learned a bad habit that will be attached to them for a lifetime.

At the coffeehouse, is a personal favorite; favorite of mine that is, because it’s so easy to walk out of a coffeehouse with extra packets of sugar and honey, as logically the owner will replace it, but keep on doing that and the sugar dispenser will end up on the other side of the counter with the coffee ingredients.

And they do watch you, let me tell you, for in my quest for a little extra sugar one time, I took six extra packets of sugar and was told to put them back or the clerk would have the owner call the police and have me arrested for stealing! So sure enough, I put them back, laughed in the clerk’s face and walked out of there, but it wasn’t a true coffeehouse anyway, it was a 7-11.

Restaurants are far worse, as people steal everything there that isn’t nailed down including; napkins, eating utensils, bread baskets that contain rolls, muffins and bagels, extra pats of butter, jams, jellies, packets of ketchup, mustard, relish, mayonnaise and of course sugar, coffee creamers, salt and pepper.

And believe it or not, that stuff all adds up, though I suspect that stealing condiment packets is far cheaper than buying a bottle of ketchup or mustard in the long run…