Crying Over Spilled Milk

Time to give you some insights into me. You must think-- wow Anna, you work with a lot of money! Have you ever been tempted to steal any?

The answer is a resounding NO! I learned my lesson way back in grade 7... come back with me to a different time, when Anna had one of her first and last lessons on stealing... (well... unless you call temporarily borrowing clothes from my sisters' closests in highschool without asking "stealing"...)

So there I was on hot dog day-- (From what I understand, the 2008 term is "hot lunch" day but when I was a kid, hot dog day it was). Hot dog Day. Honest and upfront Anna was entrusted with the enviable task of leaving the classroom early and collecting the lunch orders for my division. Off I went, unaware that I was about to leave a part of my childhood innocence behind...

We had options on hot dog day. You could get a hot dog (surprise!) but your other options were a bag of chips OR a donut OR a drink (milk or chocolate milk). If you wanted to pay extra you could get all three options, but us Thiele's want a good deal and just to get the hot dog and something else was the best deal out there. Who needs all those extras? Perhaps this is where childhood obesity begins but this is hardly the proper forum for an adequate discussion-- we'll have to table childhood obesity for now... I signed up for a hot dog and salt & vinegar chips. No donut. No drink. Just the basics.

I'm hardly complaining. In the privacy of my home when mom and I were deciding what to sign up for, I was utterly content with the basics. But temptation and envy grew in me when I began handing out my classmates's orders that had ALL the options. The donuts never looked so fresh! The drinks never seemed so refreshing!

I decided in my head that I had to have the extras. I didn't have any money. And even if I DID have the money, the orders had gone out weeks ago. Let's face it, this is Just-In-Time inventory we're dealing with here! There's no such thing as "extras".

But wouldn't you know it...

Looks like Joe Smith (**names have been changed to protect the innocent**) was absent on hot dog day and he had an outstanding order that was a) paid for; and b) going to go to waste. I justified it in my head that it's not really stealing if I take that chocolate milk....

So I took it. But those pangs of guilt hit me. I didn't feel right drinking it-- at least not in public where someone might catch on to my thieving scheme. So I stashed it away to enjoy at a later time when the dust had time to settle and no-one would bust me. It went into my bag. No-one even inquired about where the chocolate milk disappeared to... I was home free. Or so I thought.

Outta sight, outta mind. This container of chocolate milk sat in my bag. And sat. And sat.

A couple weeks passed and something in the coat room started to stink. No-one knew what it was but the smell was growing stronger and stronger, and more unbearable as the days went on. Nothing triggered in my mind that it might be MY bag that was the root of the problem. The teacher just suggested we go outside to do our learning activities to get respite from the smell.

Then one day it happened. The pressure growing inside the milk container was too strong. The curdling milk had nowhere to go but outward. The milk container expanded until it popped! Curdled, weeks old chocolate milk poured into my bag, soaking into the cloth fabrics, seeping into all my text books, all over my class notes, hair scrunchies, gym clothes... It was a certified mess. Disgusting both visually and nasally.

My bag was identified. The classroom was evacuated except for me... my sin was out in the open now and I had to pay the consequences. I cleaned everything I could but some of it just wasn't salvagable. I could have died of embarrassment right then and there. But as if matters couldn't have gotten worse for this 12 year old girl...

The stench was so bad that whenever you got a whiff your gag-reflexes would kick in. I was in a carpool at this time and you can imagine that the driver does not want a bunch of elementary kids puking their guts out in the car. So we had to devise a plan to keep the air fresh in the vehicle. This would have been virtually impossible with my bag in the car.

So we rolled down the windows and for the entire ride home (15 minutes), I had to hold my bag out the window.... I was weak with embarrassment.

So there you have it. Mortified. Humbled. Busted. I stole and suffered the consequences. I vowed I would NEVER EVER steal anything again! The irony of the story is I dearly paid the consequences but did not get to taste the fruit.... Like I said, never again. My conscience just wouldn't let me. And I'm no dummy... I've learned from this experience!!!

So no. To answer the original questions, I am never tempted by the money at work. And as a sidenote, if you would like to discuss the childhood obesity epidemic which is sweeping the nation, I welcome your comments.