Micro-memoir
How Stealing Twenty Dollars Taught Me a Lesson On Mercy
Thievery will out
Guilt gnawed at me.
Not only had I been the one who’d stolen the money but I let Jeff take the fall for it.
Saturday
One Saturday night, I attended a house party with a group of friends. I started drinking early in the afternoon and by the time we arrived at the party, I was feeling no pain.
The party raved on downstairs as I ventured upstairs to find the bathroom. “It’s past my bedroom at the end of the hall,” Gizelle called to me. Her bedroom door stood ajar and I snuck a peek into her room.
That’s when I saw them. Two crisp twenty-dollar bills laying on top of the mess of makeup and jewelry. Oh, what I could do with that money. I hardly had two dollars to put in my wallet, let alone twenty. Why would she leave them there like that? How irresponsible. I stood in the hallway wringing my hands.
Then quick as a pickpocket, I lifted one bill and stuffed it in my pocket.
I argued that she wouldn’t miss one bill. She could live with the loss of twenty dollars since she still had another twenty. Maybe she would think that she only had twenty to start with and not notice the theft.
