The Walk of Shame

Or, A Little on My Criminal History

Like all of you, I am many things: A single mother. Teacher. Writer. Believer. A woman who cares deeply about a long list of matters—being a voice for the disabled and other marginalized communities, challenging herself physically, eating enough protein, being part of a local church community, and reading widely and robustly, among other things.

Last week, I also became a petty thief.

It was mostly by accident. Also, not at all by accident. But motherhood puts you in some precarious situations sometimes. Below is my official statement to authorities.

This all started at our local Dollar Store, where I took five of my children inside real quick so that one of them could purchase a deck of cards. He wanted to practice for his newly-discovered future career as a magician and honestly, I’m all for any pursuits that are going to take some practice and don’t involve YouTube (little did I know, practicing as a magician these days means you’re basically watching other magicians on YouTube, but I digress). We had a little more than twenty minutes until we were going to pick up my other son, Cannon, from school, where he is in a classroom for other kiddos like him with severe disabilities, less than one mile from the Dollar Store.

It’s important that you know here, we cannot be late for Cannon’s pickup. Homeboy has an internal clock more accurate than a quantum sensor. I pick him up by 2:45pm, and if I arrive at 2:46pm he might spontaneously combust but we do not know for sure because I, his mother—raised by the time-keeping force of a former Army Captain, who lives and dies by the mantra that early is on time, and on time is late—have never been late to pick him up from school.

Do I have an official timestamp of our arrival at the Dollar Store? I’d put it at 2:23pm. But like I mentioned, we were only there for one thing, so that should have been sufficient. We were going to be in and out real quick. But as we walked up and down the aisles looking for a deck of cards, one of the six-year-olds spotted a plastic bathtub with a rubber ducky in it, and yes, I caved. She carried it with her to the next aisle, where the other six-year-old saw a miniature plastic golf club set, and heck, what was another dollar (well, one dollar and twenty-five cents, since this is an official statement)? We still hadn’t found a deck of cards, but the four-year-old found a toy dinosaur and it would have been unfair to say “no” at this point, so he brought it with us to the next aisle, where the twelve-year-old found, I don’t know, three or four cosmetic-adjacent items.

We meandered another few minutes, but I looked at my watch and saw that it was 2:31pm, and I started to get nervous about my on time arrival to Cannon’s school. I corralled my children toward the line to checkout, where we got behind two people, still without the deck of cards, which we never did find, to my son’s great disappointment. Just a little context for the poor attitude he had whilst standing in line.

When I tell you that Dollar Store lines move slowly, I want you to think of big-city-traffic slowly. Inching forward only to come to an abrupt, frustrating stop for some previously unforeseen reason, say, the customer checking out—a lovely senior citizen who, on any other day, I would have absolutely loved a brief conversation with—forgot his aluminum foil and needed to run back and get it. Shuffle back, to be clear. No running.

No one else in the entire store was in a hurry.

Finally, it was our turn to check out. At this point, my mind was imagining an atomic bomb clock, red numbers counting down at a blazing speed until detonation. We had to get to school before all the zeroes. It was, to the best of my recollection, 3:34pm. We were five minutes from school, maybe only four if we hit the green lights. As long as this checkout went quickly, we could make it. But wouldn’t you know, the checker was extraordinarily friendly (which explains much of the line traffic we just sat behind), and he got stickers out for all the kids and wanted to know their ages and I was about to explain that, “Yes, they are all mine and yes, my hands sure are full, and yes, it is no wonder we shop at the Dollar Store. And I actually have one more child who isn’t with us right now but at school—I know, you thought five was a crowd but there are six of them—and I need to skedaddle on over there like, right this minute…” but that would have taken more time, and we had none. The red numbers in my head were dropping at an alarming rate.

And then I saw the ParaTransit bus out of the corner of my eye, right as it pulled up in front of the doors to the store.

I said thank you to the checker, and we made our way over to the door just in time for three disabled adults to be coming in. And let me be clear here: it is universally known that you are rude if you don’t hold the door for people. But what kind of person are you if you don’t hold the door for someone with a disability? You are an ass.

So yes, I faked a smile like I had all the time in the world and held the door, with my children waiting right behind me. 3:37pm. And that’s when it happened.

“Mommy,” the four-year-old says as he pulls on the hem of my sweatshirt.

“Yeah bud?” I ask, looking down at him but still holding the door open.

His face turned down to the ground to hide his eyes from me, then slowly, slowly, slowly, he pulled a blue stegosaurus dinosaur from behind his back. “We didn’t pay dis dinosaur.”

My eyes grew wide. 2:38pm. At least one kind man using a walker to get into the store as we held the door for him had to have heard the confession. I, unfortunately, don’t have his name for you to contact for a witness statement. But I had just seven minutes! I may have only needed four, but I briefly looked back at the checkout line and saw not three but four people in it, and knowing how long it had just taken us to purchase 14 dollars worth of crap that did not include the deck of cards we came for, I had exactly two seconds to determine the strength of my moral fiber.

And I grabbed my son’s little hand and hurried him to our van.

Become a thief or show up late? Given the context and the red number countdown in my own head majorly stressing me out and all, I hope you can have grace for my decision.

What was going through my mind at that moment? I don’t know! Stealing is never justifiable, never! Even if it is only a one dollar and twenty-five cent toy, even if my son with autism might get radically upset, even if the lines are too long, even if getting five kids in and out of a store took all my focus, even if I thought my toddler would quickly forget the whole didn’t pay dis dinosaur thing and thus I could, too, even if I am a highly overly-stimulated mother who was clearly not thinking rationally at all. I do not understand the things I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate. And I do hate stealing.

(Not that I’ve ever done it before! Promise!)

Time of dinosaur theft: 2:39pm.

And yes, for a brief moment, I really did think this whole situation could be overlooked. The toddler would have his dinosaur and forget that it was stolen and no one had to know a thing. But the second we were in the van, the boy outed me.

“Guys! Mommy didn’t pay dis dinosaur!” Braylen yelled.

“Mom! What! Braylen stole it?” Jordi panicked.

“No, I not steal it! MOMMY didn’t pay dis!” Braylen defended himself, emphasizing my name, as if the fact that he could have been at fault for forgetting the dang toy was in his hand when we checked out was completely incomprehensible.

“Mom, just go back in and pay for it,” my oldest, Harper, says matter-of-factly, taking the toy from her brother and holding it out to me to take it.

“Guys, it’s not a big deal. It was an accident. And we gotta hustle to get Cannon so I’ll worry about the dinosaur later!” Harper tossed the dinosaur onto the dash, and our big van sped out of that parking lot like Max Verstappen was behind the wheel.

We made it to Cannon’s school at 2:44pm, thankyouverymuch. I may or may not have looked behind me seventeen times to make sure a police officer was not in hot pursuit.

I promise, I did plan to go back to the Dollar Store and pay for the toy. At some point. But in the meantime, did I try to get my son to play with the dinosaur, to put this whole burglary behind us? Sure did. But contrary to my initial inclination, he did not forget that it was stolen, and he refused to touch it until I brought the toy back to the Dollar Store and made things right.

For the next few days, the dinosaur toy remained on my dash, next to a plate from my daughter’s on-the-way-to-school-breakfast and an ice pack I had put on my knee after a bike ride. And my kids, my sweet, amazing children, reminded me no less than 28 times that I stole it before my conscience finally came through for me. There are few things harder than owning your own hypocrisy.

“Team,” I announced a week later, “We’re leaving for Cannon’s pick up early today. Going to stop at the Dollar Store and pay for this dinosaur!” If I expected applause or admiration for doing the right thing, I got none.

“Finally,” Jordi says.

And I could only roll my eyes. “Get in the van, kids.”

One day they will understand the pressure of being a mom and wanting to do the right thing every single time, but knowing you will mess up badly. And also, that in certain circumstances, your fear of being late may cloud your better judgement.

The walk from the parking lot back into the Dollar Store with the contraband in my hand was painful.

Graciously, the clerk laughed when I told him the situation. Someone had ripped the tag off of our stegosaurus, so we bought a second one and rang it up twice. The debt was paid, paid in full. And the clerk thanked me for my honesty but behind me I’m sure I heard my kids whispering, “She only came back because we made her!”

I attest that to the best of my ability, that is how it happened. I deeply regret not acting sooner and my kids will remind me of this for the rest of their lives. Thus ends my official statement.

Proof of purchase of TWO dinosaurs.

I guess the lesson in all of this is a hopeful one: as moms, it is easy to worry about our kids’ futures and the kind of adults they will turn out to be. But I’m here to tell you, one day you might want them to overlook your minor indiscretion at the Dollar Store and they will refuse, because they’re learning right from wrong from the thousand other times you’ve called it out when you’ve seen it—when someone is taken advantage of or injustice is allowed to persist or women are spoken about callously and it’s brushed off as “locker room talk.” They were listening when you said something.

So yeah, you’re an imperfect teacher. But still, they’re getting the hang of things.