Steal

I am not sure how it came up, but had been talking about Naughty Things Done In One's Youth, which turned to stealing, and who had, and what it was they had stolen.

I admitted that when I was a teenager living in London, I stole a sixty-pound smoked salmon from a delicatessen on Sloane Street, by shoving it down the back of my tights. Someone thought that seemed a rather heavy thing to shove down one's tights, so I had to explain sixty pounds was not what it weighed, but what it was worth – and it while it was rather large, I had a bulky winter coat on, so as long as I stood up straight and didn’t move too fast, it wasn't all that difficult.

"A salmon? In your tights?"
"It was shrink-wrapped," I sighed.
"What would one do with a sixty-pound smoked salmon?"
Oh god. "I befriended it, and together we roamed the world, carefree and in love, until a tragic accident during a bungee-jump in Las Vegas."
Blank look.
"I ate it, of course, which is why I had also thought to steal three packets of Philadelphia cream cheese while I was about it."

Despite the odd looks, I had thought it an excellent story, and better than their ones of petty school-girl pilfering (although one had stolen quite a lot of designer clothes from her employer – but I didn't think that was at all nice. Clothes are personal. I don't think anyone had a personal attachment to my dear smoked salmon).

Ms W primly claims to have never stolen anything, which is utter rubbish, as before she was married, she made a regular habit of stealing boyfriends and husbands. Due to personal attachment, I would put men in the same category of clothes, so do not wholly approve, although as she returned the men when she was done, perhaps it wasn’t stealing so much as borrowing.

I felt my story qualified me as rather the dashing desperado, until much later, when my salmon was trumped by an art-theft. T, a quiet girl, who with doll-like blue eyes and blonde curls, looked as much a criminal as a Dresden figurine.

"I stole a Picasso," she piped up.
Well!
"Not that big a deal, really. It was just a drawing."
House-sitting in NY. She and her friends traded in the drawing for cash and cocaine, had a great weekend (which culminated in them trashing the apartment), then they all legged it to Europe.

I was a bit jealous. A Picasso! But then, you can't eat a Picasso, so I still think my salmon the winner.