My Life of Crime

I was driving around with the kids when I spotted a pile of pallets on the side of the road. My eyes grew wide, and my heart soared (yes, I'm at a place in my life where a pile of pallets makes my heart soar.) I put the van in park and quickly jumped out. My kids watched on, their mouths dropped open in disbelief as I worked to heave one of the heavy pallets into the trunk of my car. 

"Mom! That's stealing!" Isaiah (11) shouted as I did my best to load the pallet in, not easily done since I had all the kids' scooters and a bike in the trunk as well. 

"It's not stealing," I assured him. "They're getting rid of it. Now help me load it in!" 

Isaiah reluctantly helped me maneuver the pallet around the seat belt that was blocking it from going over the back seat (the only place it'd fit), mumbling about me being a thief the entire time. 

"There, perfect," I said as we got it into place and I went to shut the trunk.

Avery (9), my most honest and upright kid, yelled, "No! Put it back. You're stealing!" 

I could hear the desperation in his voice, and I felt bad, but no way was I not getting that pallet. It was heading to the dump, and I wanted it for this nautical wall decoration I'd been wanting to try my hand at.

"Hush! It's fine!" I said, heading around to the front. The kids would understand once I explained it to them. 

With the pallet in place, I hopped back into the van and drove off, ecstatic with my new find. 

The kids weren't as happy. 

"Mom!! You stole!" Isaiah reaffirmed. "And you made me steal!"

"They're going to call the police!" Avery shouted, referring to the flooring store that had put the pallets out of the corner. 

I tried explaining that the store didn't actually want the pallets and had put them out for the garbage men, but it didn't matter what I said, my kids were convinced I had stolen in broad daylight, with them acting as accessories, no less.

"Look at that fence!" Isaiah pointed to a downtown coffee shop we were driving by. "Their fence is made of pallets! I told you that wood was important -- they were probably building a fence, too!" 

The kids all nodded in agreement, growing more and more convinced I had stolen the world's most valuable wood. 

"No, that fence is made of wood, and pallets are made of wood, but the fence isn't made of pallets," I tried explaining.

"No, the fence is made of pallets!" they all cried. "Mom! You're going to jail!"

This probably went on for a good five to ten minutes until we pulled up to the park we'd been heading to and they got thoroughly distracted by a homeless man and his dog. I'm sad he was homeless, but I sure am glad that man was there, b/c nothing short of this man and his dog would have gotten these kids off my case. 

Later that night, though -- they remembered. And, of course, they reported what I'd done to their father. 

"Mom stole fencing!" were Isaiah's exact words. 

Luckily, my husband's been with me long enough that he didn't even bat an eye. "That's nice," he mumbled as he rummaged around the fridge for a snack. 

The kids were furious. Their mom was a thief, and no one seemed to care but them.

Fast forward to later that night. We had just finished up dinner, Stephen Sr. was upstairs in a zoom meeting, and it was time to start putting the kids down for bed. The last thing I wanted to do was head out to the store, but I realized there was just something I needed that could not wait. So there I went, leaving Anna in the care of Stephen Jr. before reluctantly heading out into the cold, dark night. Okay...it wasn't cold. We live in Florida, where we're hard-pressed to have cold nights in the dead of winter. But it was dark, okay!

A few minutes later, I pulled up to the store, exhausted and just hoping there wasn't too much dog hair on my black yoga pants as I hopped out of the van and headed inside. I just needed one thing, so of course, I left with twelve. And, as I pulled back up to our home with my much-needed item along with a bunch of unnecessary ones, I peered through the darkness to where I'd placed the shopping bags. I squinted, wondering why one of the bags looks so much like a shopping basket before realizing it was because it was, in fact, a shopping basket. I don't know if it's exhaustion or that I'm just a plain ditz, but I had managed to take the store's shopping basket with me. It's not as bad as the time I went to Target, filled up an entire buggy with items, and then drove all the way home (30 min drive) before realizing that I left every single item in the cart in the parking lot. At least I hadn't forgotten my kid (I only had one at the time), which would have been impossible since he had been screaming his head off during the entire shopping trip, but I still counted it a win. 

I continued staring at the shopping basket. I was too tired to drive it back to the store, and my trunk was still filled with scooters, a bike, and, now, a red hot 'stolen' pallet, so there was nowhere to hide it from the kids. 

'What would they think when I drove them to school in the morning and they saw the shopping basket in my van?' I worried. 'What would they say!'

I bit my lip, trying to come up with a plan. I had nothing; no amount of talking could get me out of this one. I hung my head as I realized that the kids were absolutely right. First the pallet. Now this... I really can't be trusted.