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.