Saturday, March 29, 2008
The Accidental Thief
I feel awful. I accidentally stole something today. I went to Target this morning to buy a few mundane household items (laundry detergent, toilet paper...the usual) and I happened upon this adorable baby outfit by the new Dwell Studio line. It wasn't exactly on my list of things I needed so I stuck it in the cart next to Claire's car seat to mull it over before deciding whether I really wanted to buy it. And, you guessed it, I completely forgot it was there until I was in the parking lot and had already loaded Claire and all my purchases into the car. Now, an ethical person would have turned around, taken the child right back out of the car and lugged her (what is she now? Probably 15 or 16 lbs?) heavy little body back across the parking lot and into the store to the customer service line. I, however, did not. I was really hurrying because I still had one more store to run to and Claire was about to scream at any moment, as her 2 hour awake limit had been met and she was hungry. In an attempt to rush her back home, I didn't bring back the stolen goods. I have every intention of going back to Target tomorrow to pay for the item, but in the meantime I'm a convict on the loose and feel really shitty about it. This happened once at a grocery store when I realized in the parking lot that I had a jug of bleach on the bottom rack of the cart. But for some reason this feels a lot different - maybe because I'm a parent now and am supposed to be an example for my child; maybe because I'm not that kind of person and the item was something for Claire, which made it worse.What would you have done? |
