Hello, Hivers and members of the Weekend community. This week's engagement theme is Accidental. I have been involved in some car accidents. With no major injuries, thank goodness. Perhaps the worst one was in my university days. I was with a friend, he was driving, and we were going to a party. While on the highway, a car lost control, hit us on the side, and then hit another vehicle.
The car ended pretty badly, and it took my friend a long time to get it repaired, and it was never quite right. I had to wear a neck brace for a couple of weeks. And my knees ended up badly bruised. I broke the glove box of the car with them.
Remembering what happened at the time, it seemed like a terrible accident. But I also remember that after being treated in A&E, we still went to the party, so maybe I remember it as something worse than what it was.
But car accidents are not the topic I want to choose but Accidental thievery.
Have you, or a family member, ever accidentally stolen from a shop or friend? When did it happen, how old were you/them and what were the circumstances? Did you take the item back and if so what happened, how did you feel? Did you keep the item and avoid that shop evermore? Did you get caught and charged with theft? Bonus points if you have a police mugshot of you to show.
I don't like stealing or the people who do it. No matter how small is the value of the stolen object is, It is not a joke or something to be proud of.
When I was a teenager, I had a couple of mates at school who thought it was so much fun to steal things from shops. They thought it was such a great deed, and they would tell it as a joke and challenge each other so they wouldn't get caught. The whole thing made me sick, and I remember one school trip we went on and visited a market. I always tried to stay away from them. I would have died of embarrassment if they got caught and I was with them.
Many years later, I became a petty thief myself in a shop. But completely unintentionally.
It was ten years ago, at the time when the Venezuelan government allocated maximum quotas of dollars under the exchange control to be used for travel. Those controlled dollars were very cheap. The quotas gave you access to a small but not insignificant amount of dollars per year at a ridiculously cheap price. It was so cheap that many people were looking to sell their quotas. But that is a topic perhaps for another post. So if you had the possibility at that time to go on a trip, shopping was an opportunity not to miss because things were incredibly cheap at the controlled exchange rate.
I traveled with my aunt to Miami at that time. It was the last day of our trip, and we went shopping. It was not long before the shops closed and we wanted to take the chance to buy some clothes. We went into a shop. I'll keep the name to myself. I had picked out a few things, and I was picking out some white t-shirts to wear around home. At some point, I put one of the chosen ones on my shoulder. That day, I was dressed in white flannel and a skirt.
I finished choosing several pieces of clothing for myself, my husband, and my son and went to the cashier to pay.
When I left the shop, everything was about to close. But I was even able to go into the shop next door to buy some shoes for my son.
My aunt was waiting outside the shop, on a bench with our shopping packages.
When she saw me walking toward her, she looked at me and said, what's that on your shoulder? I had the white t-shirt I had picked out from the previous shop. I couldn't believe that I had been at the cashier with it on my shoulder and that no one had said anything to me or noticed it.
I felt like a petty thief, and I couldn't even return the t-shirt because the shop was closed.
It is very worn out now, but I still have it. And every time I see it, I remember how I got it. Today, it makes me laugh, but not because of the theft. How was it possible that nobody noticed it in the shop? Probably If I meant to do it, I would have been caught.
That is the only time I can remember I have ever misappropriated anything in a shop.
This is my entry to this week's Weekend-Engagement (WE95). Thank you, 
Thank you very much for reading
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