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In This Story…I steal a pair of gloves.
We were young enough to need a ride to the shopping center but old enough to tool around by ourselves for a couple of hours before meeting up with the mom-in-charge. It was 1968 and despite all that was going on in the world, and there was a lot, I was bored and in search of cheap thrills.
My girlfriend and I were in an Ann Taylor store where there was nothing in my price range. But purchasing wasn’t on my agenda that day. It was the “five finger discount” I was after. See an item, look around, shove it up the sleeve. I didn’t want a pair of fine leather gloves. Would never have worn the gloves – they were far too sophisticated. But they were flat enough to fit under my sleeve so in they went. My friend wasn’t looking – she was certainly not an accomplice – and would never have known of my bad behavior had the store manager not swiftly escorted me upstairs to her office. Clearly, I had no game. None.
As I followed her up the stairs, feeling like I was walking the gang plank, I wondered if my friend – not to mention her mother – would be worried about me. ‘Course this concern distracted me from whatever real consequences I would face.
“Please hand over the gloves and write your telephone number down on this pad of paper,” the lady said in a mildly annoyed voice, as though this exercise was pro forma, part of her job description. Silently, I obliged.
I squirmed hearing the familiar ring and pictured the black rotary phone with the twisted cord on the telephone table in the hallway at the top of the stairs of our two-family house. My mother answered.
“I’m calling from Ann Taylor at the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center. Are you the mother of Joanne….” and here she stopped, unsure of how to pronounce my last name. Rosenzweig. Tough on the first go-around.
“Yes, I’m Joanne’s mother, is she alright?” my mom jumped in, worried that I’d been hurt, never suspecting that her daughter was capable of committing a crime.
“She appears to be just fine but I’m calling to let you know that we apprehended her stealing a pair of gloves.”
A moment of uncharacteristic silence followed. Then my shocked and humiliated mother spoke.
“Do you need us to come and get her or will you release her to her friend’s mother who brought the girls there today?”
“That’s fine,” the store employee said. “I’ll bring her back down to the store and hopefully her chaperone will be waiting.”
My chaperone? More importantly, it sounded like I wasn’t being sent to jail. The crisis was thereby downgraded to having to face my friend, her mom, and then my mom. Descending the stairs, I tried to weigh which I dreaded more.
Our car ride home was silent. Mrs. Sherman didn’t ask me a single question. Every time we stopped at a red light, I knew that I’d have to endure this shame spiral for a little bit longer. Finally, she pulled up in front of my house and I quietly thanked her for taking me shopping and driving me home.
“Also,” I said while closing the car door, “I’m sorry.” Mrs. Sherman might have heard me.
Deep breath. Two down. One more to go.
I entered the house as quietly as I could. My mom both heard and saw me walk up the stairs, but she didn’t say a word. Unusual even if she hadn’t been called by a store manager to say that her child had stolen a pair of leather gloves. I stood there, waiting for the hatchet to fall, for the speech to begin, for something to free me from my self-imposed torture chamber. Her silent treatment was excruciating. I went up to my room and wallowed in shame, rolled around on the green shag rug in ugly humiliation, promised myself and anyone who might be listening that I would never steal again, and went deep into self-loathing. What’s wrong with me? Why would I do such a thing. Quickly, I shifted to when is she going to tell me my punishment? Yell at me. Ground me. Do something.
I marched downstairs and took a seat in the dinette. Wearing an apron, she was cutting carrots into small pieces when I asked, “Aren’t you going to say something? Tell me how ashamed you are of me?”
Without looking up from her cutting board my mom said, “I assume that you’re already punishing yourself enough. There’s nothing for me to say.”
I was stunned. She was right. Giving me a punishment would have let me off the hook, changed the subject, allowed me to focus on the punishment instead of my crime. I went back up to my room and considered why I wanted so badly to get away with something. What was the feeling I was seeking? I didn’t know about dopamine but, apparently, that rush was very appealing. My very wise mother made me think and dwell on what I’d done. Her approach was so effective and made such an impression on me that I used it on my son that time he…… uhhhh, wait a minute,…that’s not my story to tell.