![]() I craved to take every kind of pen from every kind of person. Pens from banks, the doctor’s office, bowling alleys, my friends’ houses. If someone dropped a pen while walking down the hallway in front of me, I reached down to pick it up and put it in my pocket. I started taking pens from my teachers’ drawers after school. My braces came off and I started sitting towards the front of the bus.Īs I reached high school, the pen thievery intensified. ![]() Taking pens from unsuspecting individuals like Matt, my brother, my friends. The habit started with minor offenses like this. “Can I borrow a pen?” I asked him before the quiz, and then I never gave it back. The first pen I stole was from Matt Waterloo in math class. I was determined to create radical change. I was no longer the kid who sat on the back of the bus in braces and glasses. In a way, that moment marked my transformation from wannabe to whatever, man. The plastic cracked and the little rods of led snapped and I stood there, staring at it, until someone picked it up for me. I had stuffed too much in my metal green locker, and when I yanked it open, my backpack came tumbling out onto the floor and the contents spilled onto the linoleum floor, pencil included. Then, one day in between classes, it broke. I had never owned anything that made me feel so beautifully average, so level with my peers. They were expensive - seven dollars for one - and I zipped it into my pencil case with pride. I used my babysitting money to buy the pencil at Walmart the next day. It was like listening to ABBA’s Golden Hits CD for the first time in the car with my mom - new, loud, and so totally powerful. They went in backpacks alongside rhinestone planners, and I never realized how much I wanted one until that night in my social studies teachers living room, when I first picked it up. Everyone at South View Middle School had them. In it was a Paper Mate Clearpoint Mechanical Pencil, those fancy writing utensils that caught a wave of popularity with kids in my grade. The most eye-catching part, though, was the cup of pencils on the coffee table. ![]() Books, CDs, toys, pictures - all arranged gloriously on heavy wooden shelves. There were all sorts of things that drew my attention. After their children fell asleep, I wandered around their living room. It was winter and they left in a wave of puffy coats and khakis for their middle-aged date night. My social studies teacher (and their spouse) lived a few city blocks away. I could feel everything shimmering with teenage potential. I was almost 13 and things were going to change. One weeknight in seventh grade, I babysat for my social studies teacher’s two children.
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