I’m 6 years old. I’m at Fisher Fazios with my mom. It’s where we get food and stuff. Someday it will be a library, though. I get to be in the front of the grocery cart close to my mom. I feel safe like a baby. I’m holding onto the red plastic bar around the front of the silver cart looking down at my long legs swinging, and feet dangling too low in my saddle shoes. Mommy said I’m too big for this but then she let me sit here anyway today. She’s talking to the grocery lady who is putting our food in bags.
From my spot in the cart, I see candy. I love candy it’s my favorite and it is all around me right now. I can’t open my eyes wide enough to see it all at once. When I grow up, I want to work in a candy store so I can eat ALL the candy. I’ve seen this candy before. The big Snickers bars, M&Ms, Kitkats AND Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. At Halloween I sometimes get the little ones trick or treating. I see a Pez dispenser. Those are so cool. And gum. Hubba bubba, The cool cowboy in the commercial says “Big Bubbles, No Troubles”. I tested it out and it’s true. I can blow big bubbles and when they pop, the gum doesn’t stick to my face! My neighbor plays baseball and he likes Big League Chew, the shredded bubble gum that commercial shows the baseball players chewing. It reminds ME of my grandpas pipe pouch. And there are tictacs. I’ve seen them in my grandmother’s hands, giving one or two in moments of tiny fun. The 25 cents they cost may as well be a million cents. I like their little package. tho. An instant maraca when you shake them. They have white ones, or orange ones, that are like the baby aspirin I sometimes sneak from a kitchen cabinet by climbing from the chair to the counter, and standing on my toes to open the doors. Yum!
I know my mom isn’t a checkout candy isle kind of person. She doesn’t care about any of THIS candy. She likes Circus peanuts. They’re bright orange and shaped like a tictac, but big, chewy like foam and turn to crunchy sugar when they finally melt in your mouth. I like to go to Ben Franklin, the 5 and dime and spend 10 cents on lemon heads, cherry Chans or really candy cigarettes are my favorite. I can fill my pockets using my birthday money and they last a long time. But today, I see the row of tictacs, remember the yummy vanilla taste of the coating before you get to the almost too spicy pepper mint, and without thinking, I reach out. Suddenly, the box of white tictacs are in my hand and I’m looking around to see if their maraca sound has been heard by anyone else. It hasn’t.
The tiny tictacs are now pressed up against my belly, the cart I sit in is feeling tighter and tighter, and I’m waiting for my mom to finish with the grocery lady. I’m extra quiet, but no one seems to notice. I’m worried. These tictacs, that tempted me into immediate regret, are in my hand now, and I suddenly freeze realizing I have an issue. I don’t know how to steal. I don’t even have pockets in these shorts! Uhhhh. I wanna go back to being the little girl who had never taken tictacs. Back to that moment just before… I hear the words grandpa Elmer says, with that sweet voice and loving smile, before we go into any store. “Look don’t touch”. I wish I was shopping with him today. He would have reminded me to steer my hands clear this misery. If only I was sitting on grandpa’s lap now the smell of the pipe warming the air while we sit in his favorite chair, instead of this stupid cart. But I’m not there, I’m here. My mom is done with the lady and pushing the cart with me in it outside. Sweating, but still holding on to hope, I’m watching as she puts the groceries in the car. Now it’s my turn. She reaches out to lift me from the cart. I stay silent and motionless. She reaches again with a look on her face that says it’s time to go! My mind is racing and still can’t move, but I know I’m caught. I slowly turn over my hands and with the stolen mints out in the open my mom’s face goes from confused to mad as she takes in what I have done.
Within seconds, she pulls me out of the cart, grabs me by the hand and marches me right back into the store saying something like “You’re gonna tell that grocery lady what you did.” I can’t stop crying. I feel like I’m drowning in all of that regret leaving my eyes, soaking my face and breaking my heart. We walk back into the store and shyness washes over me. Through the tears, I look up and hand the tictacs to the woman behind the counter who looks more like a giant than a person now. I’m prompted. “Are you sorry?” I shake my head yes. Will you do it again? I shake my head no. She accepts the tictacs, without calling the police to take me to jail and value instilled, my mom takes me home.
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