Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

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LMAO, at your funny story, Clay! The bleeding filet mignon ....


I went through a stealing streak when I was very very young -- 6, 7, 8. I liked something, it wasn't pinned down, so I helped myself and then made up a story to tell my parents about where I'd gotten it. I got some very good doll clothes this way, and a few doll accessories. My parents were horrified and I quickly learned that some things have owners and you don't just TAKE them without explicit permission.

For some bizarre reason, I have never been even remotely tempted to steal anything past that age. I am almost obsessively honest now, and I have been for years and years and years. I find some bottled water stowed in the bottom of my shopping cart -- I know I didn't buy any water, so seek out a checker on purpose to return it. I am at a restaurant and a waitress gives me too much change -- I point it out and make her take it back. I went to a place for lunch recently and they didn't take plastic. I snorted with indignation and they gave me the meal for free. They said, "Just come back later, OK?" I not only came back three or four times, I TRIED to pay for that meal. They wouldn't let me pay for it.

My brother stole some candy from the local supermarket once. He and his friend were doing it on a dare or something. They got caught. I was the adult at home at that time. I got to pick him up. The supermarket called the police and the police read the two boys the riot act and pretended they were going to arrest them and take them to jail. The boys were very, very scared. All this hoopla for a couple candy bars! And my parents delivered more justice to my brother when they got home.

Honesty and ownership are things that are learned. The earlier you learn them, the easier it is to resist temptations.

There is no way I would steal anything ... but, if I had not been caught and taught about ownership when I was very young, I might still be doing it.

Cat--

As usual you penetrate the subject.

I am wondering though, how you naturally connect honesty and ownership?

I know many people who are not particularly honest but they have a highly developed sense of ownership.

In fact ownership is often the outcome of covetousness.

What belongs to whom is a shifting proposition. Honesty is more absolute.

I only steal things that are abandoned, left lying in the street or cast out. I like to collect forgotten things, and put wasted things to use.

However, I have been an accomplice to a great many thefts. For instance, those for which my old roommate was responsible.
Such as the bicycle that he stole, then painted cilantro green (ALL of it cilantro green), and made a gift of to a friend.

Then of course, there were the things he stole for the apartment.
First he brought up to the apartment a metal table and matching chairs, which was an outdoor table from the restaurant down the corner. No more than 50 yards away.
Then, from the university, a fire extinguisher, a keg of beer, and the crowning jewel: a large theatre-style popcorn machine. He promptly named it "Mr. Poppy." I asked him how the hell he managed to steal something like that; the same way he did everything else. He just picked it up and took it.

You see, apparently when you're carrying around a huge popcorn machine, people assume you're supposed to have it.

A friend of mine told me this story.

He got drunk one night in the early 80's. He decided he wanted the 4' tall metal penguin that sat gaurding the door of the Ice House Cafe, one of the longest running jazz clubs in the DC area.

So, he took it.

He was on foot. He carried it for two miles, cutting through the golf course to get home. He decided he didn't want to walk any more because the darn penguin was too heavy so he *borrowed* a golf cart and drove himself home.

When he woke up in the morning, there was this black & white metal penguin staring him in the face. Scared the shit out of him, he told me. He had to dig deep into his memory to try to recall how it got there.

He said he felt a tremendous amount of guilt and wanted to take it back but was scared if he did, he'd get arrested.

Several days went by and the missing penguin made the front page of the local paper. My poor friend didn't seem worried about the borrowed golf cart that sat in his front lawn but he was a bit on edge that his drunken excursion made front page news, thinking soon his name would also be published.

My friend really wanted to give the penguin back without getting in trouble so he sent his brother in to talk to the manager. His brother told the manager, "I heard your penguin flew the coop. Between you and me, I know where your penguin is. The thief would like to return it but does not want to be prosecuted for penguin theft."

I don't know the rest of the story. I don't remember how or whether the penguin was ever returned. I don't know how or whether the golf cart made its way back to the golf course, either. I do know my friend never got his name published in the paper, though. He was happy about that. He has a penchant for fame but I don't think he wants to achieve it in that manner.

Today, there is a 4' tall statue of a dog in front of the Ice House Cafe. It is chained to the building.

My friend swore then he'd never drink again. But that was 25 years ago and I haven't seen any evidence of him living up to his promise to himself.

That reminds me of the lawn jockey that my old roommate (Cavanaugh, same one I've been talking about) also stole, although he wasn't my roommate at the time.

It was an ordinary cement lawn jockey, about three feet tall, probably around 60-70 pounds. He named it Greg Jockington. He had his dorm room all to himself, so he put Greg on the unused desk.
If you asked him why he had a lawn jockey, he would respond, "You know how sometimes you develop grudges against inanimate objects?" Apparently he had hated this lawn jockey for quite a time and vowed to steal it. So one day on a trip back home on the weekends, he stole it, and brought it to his dorm room.

When Cavanaugh's room became the party spot for our group, Greg became increasingly ridiculous. First it was the leopard print pyjamas, then the tubular metal ducting scrunched around his neck like a sci-fi collar ornament, and finally the sombrero.

(by the way, here's a pic of Cavanaugh in that same sombrero and ducting:
)

We used to try to convince people who had never been in Cavanaugh's room that he had a weird, 3 foot tall roommate named Greg who never said a word and just spent all his time at his desk. We'd never seen him move from the desk. Whenever we came in, he was there, just staring.

I remember, the night that Griffen came to visit from Texas (he had gone off to live in Houston to become a playwright; that lasted about half a year) and disappeared until Amber and Kaylee found him sprawled out in the grass with self-inflicted cuts all over his arms, and we dragged him up to Cavanaugh's room, and Griffen got his blood all over the walls in the hall and Cavanaugh's door, so when the security made their rounds, they decided to find out what was going on.
All the alcohol was strategically placed so as to be invisible from the vantage point of the doorway, where the security were required to stay unless we invited them in, so that much was okay, and from there it was just a matter of talking them out of committing Griffen to the asylum. We knew he'd be fine, it was just a cry for attention, not a suicide attempt; the cuts were horizontal to the arms, not vertical. Griffen had done this sort of thing before.
One of the security guards then demanded to know from where the lawn jockey had come. Cavanaugh said he brought it with him from home, which he had.
I remember one of the security, spotting Cavanaugh's computer and mistaking it for Griffen's, made a remark something akin to "He's got a Dell? No wonder. I'd try to kill myself too"

Greg Jockington's tale finally ended the day it was time to leave the dorms. The elevators were packed with people, so Cavanaugh was forced to use stairs. He lived on the 11th floor, if I remember right. He made a valiant effort to get Greg down the stairs, but was finally forced to abandon him halfway down.

Uh, hello, L Rod.

As usual, you cut to the chase.

The concept of "ownership" is easy and the concept of "stealing" is much more complex.

I ran into this just a couple weeks ago. It was ugly. Who was stealing from whom? How can you get health insurance if your company doesn't provide a group health plan, but they are willing to provide a dollar subsidy to help you get it? Sounds easy, but some states (my state) have laws that prohibit the employer from contributing any money to an individual policy for one of their employees.

It sounds stupid and it is stupid, but here I was. This man in perfect health applied for insurance. He couldn't get it because he told them his employer was helping him pay. I had to tell him to LIE to them, and he could get his policy. I didn't use that word, but he's no idiot. He said, "I can lie." And he did.

I felt dirty. He might feel dirty too, I have no idea. What else is he going to do? Go without it?

A book I recently read presented a similar ethical issue and cleared it up for me. I copped out. Instead of LYING, we should have confronted the law. We didn't. We just took what we felt belonged to the person in question, and left.

How do you decide about these concepts of ownership? Here was an employer willing to pay part of the premium. And an employee agreeing to the bargain. As an agent, I was willing to write the policy, and as a company, the company was willing to underwrite the person. Everything is OK EXCEPT the notions of a government agency. Their intentions are good. They want every employer who can possibly accomplish it to write GROUP health insurance on their employees. Makes good sense because group health insurance is cheaper for everyone in the long run, but some businesses are bound to fall between the cracks. They can offer SOME subsidy to some employees, but not to all.

We lied.

Were we wrong?

Did we steal from every person in the country who doesn't have an opportunity to get group insurance?

I believe we did. But I had to consider what belonged to that particular man, too. Am I going to deprive him of what rightully belongs to him because of those other people?

Sorry. It's a mess.

I know what you mean about the difference between understanding OWNERSHIP and the concept of stealing.

I don't know where I got my scruples, but I got them somewhere, and when things like this come up, they disturb me deeply. This is issue is still bothering me. Something this serious hasn't come up before in my life. I can't dismiss it.