Klepto
I remember the first time I stole something. I was five years old at family Bible study.
Every week the participating families would rotate hosting small group. The adults would gather in carpeted kitchens to assemble relish trays and stir together whatever powdered flavoring passed for hospitality in the 90s. This beverage — served in a gallon-sized Tupperware pitcher with a faded blue lid — was distributed to the fifteen Bible-students-in-waiting, most of whom were occupied being hypnotized by a talking tomato and cucumber duo or assaulting one another with Sock ’em Boppers.
On this particular night, the daughter of the host gathered a few of the girls to write and perform a drama using Lion King figurines.
She opened a plastic tackle box containing her collection — and my mouth fell open at the sheer affluence it represented. She not only had every character in the film, but multiple versions of each. She had nearly ten Nalas.
I asked if I could be Nala. She waved me toward the box with the weary air of one accustomed to plenty. I selected the shiniest version available.
The timing felt preordained. My best friend and I had recently taken to playing Lion King at her house, but some months earlier her Nala had been mutilated by her German shepherd. The mauling left only the hindquarters — a condition which proved challenging to incorporate into dramatic reenactments. I suppose it is the circle of life.
This new Nala was perfect. For the rest of the evening she stoked the fires of rebellion against the ruthless Scar, fought off hyenas, freed hostage cubs in the pride, and, at one point, delivered a stirring monologue about justice that was largely plagiarized from Matlock re-runs.
Then the call came to join the adults upstairs for the ceremonial conclusion of Bible study: the partaking of date and lemon bars. The other children raced up the stairs. I lingered.
The tackle box lay open before me. Dozens of figurines remained, lounging in their compartments like decadent turkish delight.
The needle on my moral compass began to spin. The virtues of loyalty and generosity toward my best friend outweighed the virtue of honesty toward a girl who owned ten Nalas. My young and fervent mind was animated by an unyielding conviction that such abundance in one hand and such want in another was a moral offense. Was it theft, I wondered, if the victim could hardly feel the loss? Was it not, in fact, an act of Robin Hood–esque justice to redistribute plastic wealth from the overendowed to the emotionally destitute?
I slipped Nala into my pocket, ascended the stairs, and accepted my lemon bar with the serene righteousness of one who has committed a noble crime.
Coda
Ten years later, I confessed to the girl I’d stolen from. She looked puzzled, shrugged, and said she didn’t remember owning Lion King toys, much less missing one. She laughed and told me to keep it. The absolution was casual, almost disappointing — as if she’d carelessly waved away the climax of a novel.
Yet now, well into adulthood, the memory remains lodged in me. Maturation affords a watchful eye on this larcenous propencity. While I do not make attempts to take what is not mine, somewhere within me resides a ruthless opportunist who could, if loosed from its leash of propriety, make off with anything from a child’s figurine to the very silver service from the Communion table.
In light of my less-than-favorable youthful strategems, I suspect the entire affair might have been neatly avoided by the easier method of stating my case plainly, and simply asking for what I desired. Should my entreaty have been denied, then would have been the proper time to raise my banner and campaign in earnest for Nala. And my resolve would not have allowed me to abandon the pursuit until she was mine.