Tuesday, November 4, 2014

My Petty Crime

The hotel was nice enough, although not up to our expectations and certainly not worth the hefty room charge. Nevertheless, the pillows were perfect and we were having a grand time. After a busy afternoon outdoors we came back to rest up for a night out. Feeling a tad hungry, I checked the room's mini-bar and found an assortment of goodies, none of which were actually good for you: M & M's, gummy bears, chocolate-covered almonds, chocolate-chip cookies, jumbo cashews and something else I forget, but what I remember is that each choice cost $8.00 for a paltry amount wrapped in a fancy box and tied with a gossamer bow. That bow annoyed me.

I had started out hungry and a puff of pot made me hungrier, and mischievous, so I decided to open the carefully-packaged cookies and eat them, one by one, then close up the box just as carefully, bow and all, and return it to its little pillowed spot inside the mini-bar, empty. Mitch, a.k.a.Mother Teresa, thought this was a bad idea amounting to petty larceny. I said charging $2.00 per cookie for what essentially looked like supermarket-grade Chips Ahoys was highway robbery, and suggested he smoke a little pot and ease up. Besides, I was planning to come clean before we left and pay for the damn cookies anyway, only I forgot.

We checked out two days later and on the way home I remembered. I imagined the next occupants of that room opting for the cookies, opening the box and finding it empty, and then calling the front desk to complain: "There are no cookies in the box of cookies in the min-bar," they'd say. But who would believe them? Would they be charged the $8.00?

I have measurable guilt over this act until I remember that O.J. went free despite killing two innocent people and I gain some perspective on my crime. Still, I haven't forgotten it. I hope I do soon.


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