Petty Theft In Your 40s

The do’s, the don’ts, and how to feel alive again.

Growing up, I never stole anything.

I was a good boy bound to the laws of the land. When I was sixteen, I got in some trouble for a friend of mine stealing CDs out of unlocked cars because I drove him around the neighborhood while he committed these thefts, but I didn’t execute the act myself.

Now that I’m deep into my adult life, I’ve found that stealing the occasional innocuous item from a grocery store can spice up an otherwise dull existence.

But why now?

Great question. It boils down to apathy.

Not apathy on my part. I find that planning my little bouts of thievery takes a tremendous amount of effort. It’s the general apathy that envelops the modern low-wage worker and, more broadly, America itself.

I used to work these thankless jobs. In high school, I stocked shelves at a grocery store under the boot of a militant manager named Rodney. He instilled in me the importance of my job and gave me free rein to punish shoplifters with extreme prejudice.

I took it seriously and derived great joy in chasing down miscreants who dared lift anything from the store under my eagle-eyed surveillance.