Sunday, July 27, 2008

"Theft for Dummies" an Essay by Nick Gregorio

In aisle three you could find the backpacks marked for clearance that weren’t yet pulled from the plan-o-gram. The backpacks were perfect. See, because they were marked as clearance, their prices were slashed from the standard twenty to twenty-five dollar price range to about three bucks, give or take a dollar. Funny thing about the backpacks was they’d fly off the clearance rack within minutes, no matter what time of year it was. It was as if every parent with a child in school would hoard these school bags, thinking, if I don’t act now, my child will go without a school bag. What will the other kids say? They’ll go tell their parents that we can’t afford even the most basic school necessities. We’ll be laughing stocks. Being an OD employee allowed you to procure said backpacks before those paranoid, greedy parents ever got their grubby mitts on them, because you held the key, the new plan-o-gram, the source of knowledge that made you the first to know what backpacks were ready to become the perfect vessel for your fiendish schemes. Why, you may ask, were the backpacks so perfect, what was their use? Theft, of course. Say you nabbed one off the shelf as soon as the new monthly plan-o-gram was sent down from corporate, before the parents got a chance to even look at the clearance, you could fill it to the brim with various items of your choice and pay a premium price. And part of my duties at the OD was to get the clearance off the shelves, mark it as such and take it up to the rack in the front of the store. So I was even the first employee to know which backpacks were ready for clearance limbo. I was privy to the most valuable information a treacherous crook of an employee could have.

Once a month I’d grab a JanSport or an Airpacks AirApparent Mesh Backpack off the shelf and stuff it to the gills with all sorts of shit I thought could be potentially useful. Double-A Batteries: I’m gonna need them. My Gameboy might crap out on me during church or something. I’d take ten packs of twenty-four ($20.49 each). Five-Nib Calligraphy Set: I might need that if this whole college thing doesn’t pan out for me. I’d take three ($13.99 each). Gel Pens: Maybe I could become a famous novelist someday. I’d take five sets of eight ($12.99 a pop). Poppycock: I’d LOVE to eat a delicious caramelly popcorn snack. One tin ($9.99). Sometimes I’d spring for the chocolate covered Poppycock ($10.99). iTrip/Car Charger combo by Griffin: I need my tunes in my car. ($89.99). Wireless-G Range Expander: I could probably leech off my neighbor’s internet service ($99.99). Self-Sealing Bubble Mailers: Maybe my band will make it this year. I could send demos away in these. I’d take ten packs of twelve ($7.99). Et cetera, et cetera, so on and so forth.

I’d load up every last pocket on those backpacks and mosey my way on up to the CPC (Copy and Print Center) where my girlfriend at the time would give me a little wink or sometimes a devilish smirk, knowing full well what was going down and say, “That’ll be three dollars, sir.”

“I’ll be using debit today, miss.”

“Slide your card and tap in your pin when it prompts you.”

We’d do this dance, give or take, once a month, she and I. We’d pretend to have this clerk/customer relationship whenever I’d be pulling my scams. Well, at least the scams that required one to be rung out at the cash register. In my two years at the OD, I’d learned a plethora of ways to get merchandise out the front door, and I utilized every last tactic I was aware of.


I can’t really consider myself a criminal. Sure, during my time at the OD I’d stolen (and this is a rough estimate) over three-thousand dollars worth of shit I thought I was going to want to need somewhere down the line. But, truthfully, I never stole anything because I thought I was pulling one over on a retail giant. I never wanted to prove anything to anyone. I just saw something the slightest bit appealing and thought, that’s mine, I’m taking it. The OD set themselves up for acts like these to go down, too. I mean, first of all, there wasn’t a single security camera in that whole warehouse style super-store, not a single goddamn one. Although I’m fairly certain that wouldn’t have stopped me. I stole random items from every job I ever had. I pulled Lunchables right off the shelves and took them directly into the meat-room I was washing down in an Acme and Acmes have cameras lining the ceiling in five foot intervals up and down every aisle, for God’s sake. Never bothered me. So, obviously, working in the OD was an open invitation to take what I pleased, whenever I wished. Also, the OD’s managerial was typically nowhere to be found. However, whenever I would cross paths with them they’d ask me to accompany them out back for a cigarette. They’d smoke, and my friends and I would hurl empty SoBe bottles at the walls near the loading dock, or over into the mall lot, behind a thin row of evergreens.

The lack of security, the absent and apathetic managers, and the fellow employees who followed my lead, made for a perfect environment for pilfering merchandise. Could you blame me? I’m sure some could consider my actions irresponsible, or reprehensible, or despicable, or any other loaded work for bad, but this simple formula will pretty much sum up how this sort of thing can happen:

Boredom + Shitty security + Apathy + More boredom – Managerial staff + A wealth of merch ripe for the pickin’s = Aforementioned behavior

I believe you can see that the Universe aligned itself in such a way that it made robbery an appealing, fun and easy pastime for me. And, let me tell you, I was damn good. Damn good. I was so good, in fact, that I managed to steal, then un-steal an eight mega-pixel digital camera. Trust me when I use the term “un-steal”, because I certainly couldn’t consider what I did an actual “return”.

On my birthday, a year or so into my tenure, I thought I’d treat myself to a rather generous birthday gift. I was turning twenty-one, so I figured I was entitled to anything in the store. Twenty-one’s a biggie. I scoured every aisle, clearance rack, and top-stock shelf, looking for anything that was going to suit my fancy. Nothing caught my eye. Nothing popped out and wished me a happy birthday. That is until the loading dock bell rang, that day’s freight load had just shown up and I was FreightBoy, the gofer whose job it was to haul the pallets off the truck and begin to sort and separate the electronics from the general office supplies and furniture, so it could quickly and easily be entered into the store’s inventory.

I unloaded the truck and began to hear someone, something, call out to me. “Happy birthday!” it called, “Today’s your day, buddy! You’re turning twenty-one and you’re able to legally drink beer now without fear of any legal repercussions. Today’s your lucky day. You should probably choose a brand new, beautiful…”

Eight mega-pixel camera.

“Happy birthday to me,” I whispered to myself as I came upon a cache of these new, state of the art, sleek, stylin’, and insanely expensive cameras.

“Take us all!” they yelled.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t. Just one of you will do.”

“But we come in a set!”

“Just one, thanks.”

“But we’re family!”

“Now that’s just plain silly!”

“Ok, ok, jeez, you’re a tough sell. Speaking of sell, take one for yourself and unload the rest of us on eBay. You could make some serious loot, yes?”

“Yes. Yes, I could.”

“Ask Maggie for the key out back and hide us underneath the empty pallets. Come pick us up after you clock out.”

When Maggie opened the office door, before she could say a word, I said, “Can I get the key for the back door? Got some pallets and stuff to go out. Gotta make a trash run and, ya know, clean up back there a bit. Whoever closed last night really didn’t do that great of a—“

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

“Huh?”

She handed me the key and slammed the door in my face.

Against the pleading and begging coming from my new friends, the cameras, I only took one of them out back with me. I figured one missing from the shipping count wouldn’t matter, but all eight may have proved to be a bit suspicious, despite the fact that the new set of so called “managers” wouldn’t have entered the tech into the system until the next morning. Maybe even the day after that. I made myself a checklist to cover all my bases:

1.) Place the camera under pallets.
2.) Return key to Maggie.
3.) Clock out at five to get home in time for birthday dinner.
4.) Drive out back, pick up camera.
5.) Happy birthday to me.

Flawless. Absolutely flawless. I couldn’t have asked for an easier heist. Once again, the universe sent me a cosmic Hallmark card. Of course, with all fantastic circumstances comes that monkey wrench that gets tossed into the spokes of the best laid plans by none other than God himself (in any of his various denominational incarnations). Whether it’s something that results in the smallest of set backs, or an incident that derails your train to cosmic victory, something always happens. Always.

After my birthday/victory dinner, my girlfriend (different girl this time) handed me a box wrapped in Superman wrapping paper. “Happy birthday,” she said.
Admiring the wrapping, I carefully removed the paper, and saw my gift. There it was, God’s monkey wrench: A brand new Kodak four mega-pixel camera. Not as high-tech or stylish as the one I’d ganked, but sweet and thoughtful nevertheless. One had to go back. And, honestly, I had a pretty difficult time deciding which one that would be.

So, after hours of deliberation between myslef and the pilfered camera, we decided that it would be best to un-steal, yes, un-steal, the superior, yet somewhat dishonest camera and try to be the “good boyfriend” we both were certain that I could one day become.

Un-stealing can’t be considered “returning” due to the fact that I chose not to walk in the front door and state, “I’d like to make a return,” or just stroll on in, foregoing the cash registers all together, and place the item back where I found it. Nay, un-stealing is merely reversing the process in which the original theft took place. In this case, I drove around back, strategically placed the camera underneath a pallet, returned to the front lot, parked, said hello to Jerry (the store manager), asked him for the key to the back door by using a similar refuse removal excuse , quickly grabbed the camera and placed it back where I found it: among it’s overly expensive brethren. Done deal. I stole, then un-stole. See how it works?

I’ve got to tell you, however, that theft can occasionally have its drawbacks. No, not the whole birthday un-stealing thing. Not the risk of being caught, fired and criminally prosecuted. Not the direct slap in the face to God, or Moses or their ten commandments. Not the soggy, sloppy remnants of one’s moral fiber. No, none of that. The real problem lies in the increased ego that comes hand in hand with getting away with various acts of robbery. I developed a very large head in partaking in all of these acts. Granted, physically, my noggin isn’t particularly what one could consider “normal sized”, but I felt that my radio headset, used to look even more ridiculous in an already absurd uniform, could no longer handle my perpetually inflating sense of badassness. I thought I was one bad son of a bitch. It was wonderful.

When my friends at the store quit or just stopped showing up and were replaced with young-bucks (who were more or less my age) I took it upon myself to show them the ropes. I became their mentor and they, they were my pupils.

Jensen had a grin on his face when I said, “Take anything you want. I do it all the time.”

“Anything?” he asked.

“Yep. Tell your buddies, too.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“One year, five months.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“Year and a half.”

Word spread quickly. I had the luxury of working in a store filled with people who were ready and willing to assist me, and each other, with all sorts of pilfery (pilfery?). Under my wing, they learned faster than I ever could have expected. I started off by not paying for a Mountain Dew here, or a pack of Dentyne Ice there, whereas, they began with flash drives and memory cards. I was so proud of my minions. They helped me, I helped them. We were like a secret society embedded deep underneath the city streets the ruling class tread upon. We were cancerous little cysts, slowly eating away at the body of an office supply mega-store (figured out which one yet?). We were thriving for a good long while, too. However, as more and more employees began to be hired, I found that I was no longer the one training them. Jensen had taken it upon himself to show the new-hires the very ropes I had shown him only a few months prior. I’d become redundant and was being left out of the endeavors. Jensen started with flash drives but told his new crew to begin with laptops. That’s about when we, the cysts, began to pain the body. The mangers started to notice.
The new guys and I never had any problems with each other, I just stopped helping them and they eventually forgot that I was the one who started the whole operation. I was the one pulling the backpack scams. I was the one who got so good at stealing I could walk right out the front door with a spool of CD-R’s, or a case of SoBe Energy. I was the one who un-stole a four-hundred dollar camera. I made them. All of them.

Those were my exact thoughts when I noticed the red light. Said red light was on a white box I never saw before above the loading dock door. It’s definitely new, I thought, as I realized that with every move I made, that red light would flash green. Obviously, something was afoot.

“Maggie, what’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That thing.”

“Oh, uh, still-frame motion sensor camera.”

Oh, shit.

“When was it installed?”

“Last week I think.”

Ron, the Regional Manager had them installed at the front and back doors of the store. And just in time, too. Those little thieves weren’t even discrete. They got greedy. I taught them to steal properly and they got sloppy. Too sloppy.

One by one they started picking people off. Jensen was the first to go and the rest of those crooks soon followed suit. Jerry fired twelve people in six days. But my name never came up in the conversations he held with those lousy, no good criminals. As a matter of fact, after all the firings took place, Jerry asked if I could work more hours to fill the gaps in the schedule. He said, “I need someone I can trust to work some more hours. You, sir, are the only one in this whole place I can trust. Please, assist me in my hour of need. I fear that because of the events that have recently taken place, I am now on the proverbial chopping block.”

“You can count on me, sir.”

“Good, good. You are the only honest person left here.”

“Yes. Yes, I know.”

Okay, so maybe that conversation isn’t exactly word-for-word accurate, but Jerry was asked to resign, after sixteen years with the company, three weeks after the culling and I was working thirty-five hours a week.

Apparently I was the Universe’s golden-boy for a full two years. I was single handedly responsible for thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stolen merchandise, the termination of twelve employees, the criminal prosecution of one of them, and the destruction of one man’s sixteen year career with the OD, which began in Texas and ended in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania—he was personally asked by our Regional Manager to uproot the life he built for himself and his wife in the largest state in the US, to fill a missing store manager spot halfway across the country. All of this and I was the one left standing. I was never fired. I left on my own volition and managed to walk away with a truck load of shit that, for the most part, went unused. All of this and I was the most well trusted employee in that particular store. The Universe had my back.

Not everything went to waste. I still use my iTrip. I’ll never have to buy another spool of CD-R’s, or gel pens, or batteries. I used my neighbor’s internet for a year until my family finally sprung for wireless service. I never did learn how to draw myself up a college degree with the calligraphy set, but college is just about to finish up and I might be better off for it. As for the rest, well, at least I still have most of it.

Sure, there were a few instances where the cosmos lined up perfectly, either to save my ass, or to burn a few (try thirteen) employees who were connected to my actions. But, I don’t think I did anything wrong. I stole, lied, lied by omission, but it’s all just a sort of juvenile right of passage to me. There isn’t a single person that can say that they haven’t done some bastardish shit in their lifetime. If you said that, you’d just be a liar and a thief, or a liar and cheat, or a liar and a serial killer. Whatever category you can think of and fit into, don’t try and skirt the issue. Maybe just try and limit yourself to being one type of asshole. What other reason do you think I had when I decided to write this? One I can live with, but more than that, well, I’d probably just lie about it anyway.