It Was Only a Bazooka

For this one we have to go way back to time beyond when most of you were born.

I am talking about when I was a small girl and since I am close to being older than dirt some of you may not remember some of the things I will be describing.

Mamakat's prompt that I chose from this weeks Workshop Wednesday was Talk about a time you stole something.

I grew up in a small town of about 1500 people where everyone knew everyone. In a way this was a good thing because I never had to be afraid and my parents always let me go places by myself. No drug dealers standing on street corners or men waiting to drag me into their cars and take me away(this would come later when I went to college). The down side to a small town was that you shouldn't get away with anything either. My mom knew what I was doing before I even thought about it sometimes!

We shopped for groceries at Rubick's. A real Mom and Pop store where they had a butcher who cut your meat as you asked for it. The candy wasn't located next to the check out but rather it had an aisle all to itself. They had tootsie rolls, jaw breakers, smarties, licorice, slo pokes, sugar daddies, fruit stripe gum and my all time favorite the big round ball of Bazooka Bubble Gum!

One day I went shopping with my mom and while she was talking with a friend I casually checked out the candy aisle. I walked back and forth looking at everything, reaching out and touching once in a while and heaving a big sigh because I had already been told I wasn't getting anything long before we had left home.

I was probably 6 years old at the time and I knew what stealing was but in my mind if I took one piece of Bazooka Bubble gum it wouldn't really be stealing. After all, we had just spent lots of money on groceries, this would just be more groceries, right?? So I reached out and put my chubby little hand around a piece while looking to see if Mom or the store people were watching, snatched it up and thrust it in my pocket, immediately running out to the car, jumping in and slamming the door (this was before we had to strap kids into car seats- guess back then they didn't care if we lived or not).

Mom came out, got in the car and we went home. As we were putting the groceries away, I decided I was safe so I pulled the Bazooka out of my pocket and started to unwrap it.

Just like that, my mother's hand snatched my wrist and took the gum out of my hand at the same time demanding," Where did you get this?" I knew I was in deep trouble when I looked at her and the next words out of her mouth were,"and don't lie to me"

So , with tears streaming down my face, my bottom lip trembling and snot dripping from my nose, I told her what I had done. She tossed my naughty ass back in the car and raced back up to Rubick's Grocery store. Then marched my sorry ass in the store and in front of everyone there made me tell the owner what I had done, give him back the Bazooka Bubble Gum and tell him I was sorry. I was horrified!! He was so nice and offered to give me the gum anyway. Of course my mother wouldn't let him- the principal of the thing or something like that. Cured me of ever wanting to steal again.

Now head on over to Mamakats and steal some other stories from bloggers participating in the workshop. You won't be sorry.