My Family Steals

My Family Steals

by Jeffery L. Bowman

I stole something the other day. Luckily, I don't fully understand the consequences of my actions because I grew up in a Southern California family where petty theft is like farting at the dinner table. You know you did it... and you're even sort of proud that you did it. You just don't stand up and say you did it.

My mother's mother, Vida was not born with the "I can't take that because it doesn't belong to me" gene like most normal people and therefore she steals whatever the hell she feels like taking at any given time.

When I was sixteen, I moved out of the house and into my own apartment. It was either that or go to jail for killing my family and apartment just seemed... nicer. I moved into the Bora Bora Apartments - mainly because I liked the name and I wanted to tell people that I lived in the Bora Bora Apartments. A better name would have been "Stinko Stinko" Apartments because it sat directly across the highway from the Heinz Ketchup factory. Day and night it reeked so bad of rotten tomatoes that I still can't stand the smell of ketchup.

My grandma wanted to help me furnish my one smelly room and offered a beautiful burnished wood coat rack with brass arms that had been in her entryway for as long as I can remember.

"Grandma, I can't take this! It's too expensive!" And besides that, I thought, "What, are we in Minnesota? I have one coat!"

Grandma spit a little and threw her head back in a laugh. "I didn't pay for the damned thing! I stole it from some stupid people at a Mexican restaurant!"

According to her story, she and my grandfather walked in to a cute little Mexican restaurant in Orange County and ol' Vida decided that she liked the coat rack in the waiting area. She liked it so much she just picked it up and carried it out the door.

According to her story (I say it again because I have no idea if this is true or not), the maitre'd followed and asked what the hell she was doing. Grandma (according to her story) got all pissy and said, "My husband owns this restaurant and he asked me to bring this home." She then (according to... well, you get it) added, "So shut up!"

Okay, there are a lot of holes in this story, but in my family, you never point these out. Why spoil the fun? Who really cares? And most of all, shut up!

• • •

Looking back in to the reaches of our family history uncovers many examples of our familial thievery. Sometimes we steal from others, sometimes we steal from each other. On sometimes, damn it, someone steals from us.

According to legend, my grandmother's father, Wallace Taber, was killed way back in the thirties by a relative, Erle Halliburton, so that Halliburton could steal the Taber family oil rights. Sounds a bit like a "Dallas" episode, but to back this story up, you may find it interesting that Halliburton Industries continues to this day to make billions from their petroleum products and Taber Industries... well, there is no Taber Industries.

"If that asshole didn't kill my father, we'd all be God damned rich right now!" Grandma is fond of saying.

To my father, theft is actually what he calls his "entitlement." Here's one of the best scenes from "My Father Is A Big Fat Thief"; Dad is out on a date and having dinner at our local country club and in-between searching his pockets for loose change, Dad's obviously morally deprived date decides that she likes the crystal salt and pepper shakers on the table. Dad likes the morally deprived date enough to commit petty theft and sticks the pair in the pocket of his jacket. The waiter spies this and approaches the table, giving it his most diplomatic try.