Jonathots Daily Blog
(2421)
(Transcript)
It had never happened before.
There was going to be a carnival set up at the Westerville Shopping Center, right across the street from Redman’s Hardware.
Even though that in itself was cool, even cooler was that this cavalcade of amusements was advertising unlimited rides and midway games for five dollars for the whole day.
It was great.
The only trouble was, Randy and I didn’t have five dollars apiece, so I was ready to do my usual small-town plan of giving up and spending my carnival time complaining about missing the parade.
Randy, on the other hand, had an idea.
He went down to our local phone booth, sitting on the north corner of the Town Commons, and stuffed a bunch of Kleenex into the change return, so that when people missed a call or had money coming back their way, it would get caught and would not return to them.
I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard.
I wasn’t so concerned that it was dishonest as that I didn’t think we would ever get ten dollars out of such an adventure, with the money coming out in increments of ten cents a throw.
But Rand did it anyway, and three days later, when he pulled out the Kleenex, we ended up with a haul of $10.75.
Apparently a very popular phone booth.
We could not have been more giddy. We went to the carnival and had a fabulous time, never once feeling guilty about how we acquired the funds.
No, for me it was four days later.
I was sitting in my mother and father’s loan company, and I peered out the window and saw there was a policeman inspecting the phone booth.
It scared the crap out of me.
I had to do something–not out of guilt over my misstep, but rather, because I didn’t want to go to Juvenile Hall, where I heard they only served partially cooked pot pies.
So when my parents weren’t looking, I snuck into the safe of the loan company and grabbed a roll of dimes. I quietly stepped over to the phone booth, trying to pretend like I was going to make a call, and as calmly as possible, stuffed that whole role of dimes back into the slot, one at a time, to do recompense for my sin.
Once again, it never occurred to me that I stole from my parents to cover my previous thievery.
It was nearly three weeks later, when my uncle gave me five dollars for school supplies, that my conscience finally showed up.
I determined to go to the bank, purchase a roll of dimes and slip them back into the safe, no one the wiser.
Unfortunately, my plan was foiled by the fact that my parents hung around all day long, never giving me the chance to do penance.
I decided to try again the next day, but on the way home I passed by the local five and dime, and they were advertising candy bars–six for 20 cents.
Well, the only 20 cents I had was in the roll of dimes, and I thought, what the hell? What difference would two dimes make?
The next day I forgot to return my dimes to the loan company, but I did stop off at the Dairy Queen to get a hot dog and a coke, which took another seven dimes.
Long story short, within a week I spent all the dimes I had planned to return.
I didn’t feel bad–I felt stupid.
I did make one determination, and that was to never steal from the phone booth again. And when Randy tempted me, I changed the subject and refrained from further iniquity.
From then on, I went on a personal journey in search of my own integrity.
It was ten years later, long after my dad had died.
I was visiting my mother at her home, and I walked up to her and gently placed a roll of dimes into her hand. She looked up at me, quizzically.
I patted her on the shoulder and said, “It’s a really, really long story…”
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