A life of crime

Exhibit A

Because I'm confident that Alex will not be reading this in the next couple of years, I wanted to document our first shoplifting experience. This evening we went shopping for groceries. At the checkout - Brett and I had "caught" Alex collecting small vials of spectacle screws off of a cardboard sheet. Having asked her to put them back and thinking I'd addressed a comment to Brett along the lines of "check they're not in her pockets", as that is the current fad - putting items in pockets - I returned my attention to paying for the groceries. The family had returned home from shopping and half an hour later, Alex comes over to me in the kitchen and says "Look at what I have" whilst pulling out a vial of spectacle screws from her pocket.

I tried not to react - and said "oh, we didn't pay for that so we need to return it to the store."

The vial is sitting on the table next to the door for our return there tomorrow morning on the way to school.

Uh oh!

I guess I can't complain - my life of crime started at kindergarten when I took a purse from lost property. I was old enough to know it was wrong - she isn't old enough to know that yet so we're playing it low key - saving the heavy stuff for the teen crime spree.