Made 5 Bucks In A Rather Interesting Way

[LandsUnknown]

I've never stolen in my life and never would. Stealing is wrong obviously. This on the other hand isn't exactly stealing. Just a way I once tricked this guy for five bucks. Sometimes, this vending machine malfunctions.... and eats quarters. They have snacks that are like 5 bucks. When it happened once I went to the guy and said it ate my quarters and got my money back. So, after some time passed I had the idea to go back and SAY the vending machine ate my quarters even though it didn't. Just in case there was a security camera, I took some nickels out of my pocket to look like quarters and acted frustrated. Then, I went to the guy and said it ate my five bucks of quarters. It didn't...... And the guy gave me my "refund". Just an interesting little trick I found.

 

[alasdairm]

you would never steal - because stealing is wrong obviously - but lying to con somebody out of money is fine? people rationalize stuff to themselves in the most interesting ways...

alasdair

 

[Tranced]

"I would NEVER steal, but casual defrauding's okay - here's a top tip".

Confession: when I was a late teens engineering apprentice there was a sandwhich machine at work. It turned out, as somebody told me, that you could force the door open and 'help yourself' to a sandwhich. I came to take it as a bonus on night shifts, and started doing it on a regular basis. I just assumed it was some huge company and, well, 'fuck them'. Anyway, one day after a few months of everybody getting in on it, a handwritten note went up on the machine explaining that this was run by a small and local family business, who were going to be unable to continue if people kept stealing sandwiches, and pleading with us to stop.

I felt like such a fucking cunt. Thankfully I think everyone heeded the message and people resumed actually paying for them, and they fixed the loose doors.

Case in point, think about what you're doing before you rip somebody off. They have lives too.

 

[CFC]

People often rationalise behaviour they wouldn't otherwise condone when they're several stages removed from the outcome - it makes it easy on the conscience. I'm sure I've done it before too. But as Tranced's example shows, you really don't know who's going to suffer as a result OP. Maybe the employee will get the sack for the missing money.

 

[garnet888]

Hey, the guy maybe just wants to rant here out of guilt - or maybe out of fun - and found this thread. Let's not judge.

 

[JessFR]

you would never steal - because stealing is wrong obviously - but lying to con somebody out of money is fine? people rationalize stuff to themselves in the most interesting ways...

alasdair

Me and other junkie friends of mine. We used to steal and con and hustle people all the time. I find it very interesting to think about it. Cause like, we never talked about how what we were doing was wrong. And we knew it was wrong, we didn't have any justifications to tell ourselves it was morally ok, deep down we knew it really wasn't. Which is probably part of why we never talked about it. We knew it was wrong and so what is there to talk about? We did it cause we were desperate and at the time didn't see another choice. So we knew that we were gonna keep doing it. So what's the point of talking about it except to make ourselves feel like shit.

Very occasionally I might mention what people would think being a fly on the wall as we'd talk about stealing or crimes or drugs. Or he'd mention feeling like shit over what we did. But it was rare. Usually, if you could listen in you'd probably have gotten the impression we thought it was totally ok. That we thought other people existed for us to use and that we couldn't care less. But that wasn't true. It's just part of how we coped with it.

Just, interesting to think about. I get the sense most people will never get such an intimate view of how people wind up so seemingly indifferent to hurting people. I hear normal people talk about how people like us are just bad, immoral, just hurting people out of selfishness or laziness or lack of empathy. But that's almost never true in my experience. Any bad justifications or seeming indifference, just a way of coping with doing shit you know is wrong.

Can't speak for everyone but that's how it's been for me and all the people I've known.

I should probably clarify, I'm talking about stealing from individuals. Stealing from large insured companies, well honestly I can't say we did have much of a moral problem with that. But stealing from individuals or perhaps very small personally owned stores is very different.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^honestly, from personal experience, while stealing from individuals is indeed different, a lot about what you wrote can be equally applied even if it wasn't your own experience, as it spoke so eloquently to my own.

At a certain point stealing from individuals become totally unacceptable to the individual involved in engaging in it, faster I think than it does when one can justify their stealing more easily by the distance one can have morally with a corporation compared to an individual. But in both cases it is possible for the individual to avoid and/or justify what they're doing up until a certain point. I had reached that point with individuals far faster than with corporations though, but I found there to be a point where engaging in any kind of taking what isn't free offered become immoral and unacceptable to me.

Anyways, good post.

 

[JessFR]

Yeah. Honestly, we never had much of a problem with our conscience with stealing from large chain stores.

But stealing from individuals, and small individually owned businesses where it would hurt an individual person. That was hard on our conscience.

We did it cause we were so desperate. But still, we knew it was wrong. We'd cope with it by trying not to think about it or talk about it. And by letting ourselves believe we were just bad people. We knew what regular normal society would think about us and it was easier to just tell ourselves what they'd think of us was simply true. That we were bad people and deserved bad things to happen to us.

Like I said before, most of the time you'd think we really didn't care. Cause we'd talk about it like it was the most casual ordinary thing in the world. One time, something we did made the news. Slow news day I guess. It was just a segment covering Easter and it mentioned about how not everyone was well behaved for some event we were at and they were talking to this guy who had had a large amount of money stolen from him. I'm fairly sure they were talking about us. We were there that day and we stole that money. That exact amount in that place at that time. So they had to be talking about us. My and the guy I did this shit with.

That made me feel pretty shitty. I thought about telling him about what I'd seen on the news but I didn't. Cause I knew it would hurt him, and what would be the point? We had already spent the money and it was a crime of opportunity so it wouldn't have been feasible to repay him. But yeah I felt pretty shitty for it.

The main reason I felt so bad about it was cause of how happy I was that we'd done it at the time. We saw the opportunity, it was just chance, so we took it. And it covered our drugs for both of us for the whole day. So we were both pretty happy at the time. We were worried about getting enough money for our drugs that day so when we saw the opportunity to steal the money and saw it was enough to cover us for the whole day and then some, we were both so relieved and happy we didn't have much time to feel bad for how some innocent person just paid the price for us. Which is what I mean, if you were a fly on the wall watching us then you'd have thought we were horrible heartless people. That we just took this guys money for our drug habit and didn't give a shit how it would have hurt them.

Heroin addiction does bad shit to your conscience.

Point is though, it's all a coping mechanism. We cared. We knew it was wrong, we knew we were hurting people and we went to a lot of effort to try and get money without hurting anyone. We might have been too relieved at the time to feel bad about it, but I felt pretty horrible for it the next day especially after seeing it on the news. And I know it bothered him too. And most of the time we were successful with getting money without hurting people, but every now and then we found ourselves with few options but to do something that would hurt someone. And we knew we would keep doing it so we just put it out of our minds.

So yeah, watching us you'd have thought we didn't care at all. That we were immoral lying stealing junkies. And that's how we thought about ourselves too. But we weren't. It hurt us a lot how much suffering we were causing. And we certainly weren't lazy. Most of our time and effort went because we were desperately trying to get money without hurting people. If we truly didn't care we could have just stolen all the time and it would have been a lot easier.

I think that's a lot of the reason we never felt bad about stealing or people stealing from large chain stores or begging for money. Most of our money came from pan handling. And that involved lots of lying too. But we never felt bad about it. Not cause we thought it was ok but just cause it was so minor and harmless compared to our alternatives.

In my experience this describes most criminals. There are some assholes out there that just like it. They do it even if they don't have too. Neither of us had any time or respect for those kinds of people. But most criminals we knew were like us. Acting out of desperation and feeling like shit for it. Trying to cope using shitty justifications or just not talking about it at all. And the drugs of course. The drugs helped a lot.

I vividly remember thinking about how we looked so normal. People would just see us and think we were just a normal young couple with no idea what we'd done and what we were capable of. And I'd think about how disgusted they would be with us if they knew the truth. People have no idea the criminal element going on right in front of them.

We all have our own moral codes. Even for all the bad shit we did, we had no time for people who REALLY didn't care, who'd tell stories about crimes they'd committed or supposedly committed like they were showing off. People who'd steal even when they had other options when we would go to so much effort to avoid hurting people. We both hated that shit.

I generally tried harder than he did to talk about what we were doing. Cause well, there aren't many people who will be able to relate to this kinda shit and what we were going through. But he'd never want to talk about it. And generally I wouldn't push it. As is usually the case with these kind of running partnerships where it's a guy and a girl, he tried to protect me from getting too involved in criminal shit. So he was usually more directly responsible for what we did when it came to this kinda thing. I'm certainly not innocent. But it meant I didn't want to push him to talk about it when it was bothering me.

We both tried to protect each other, and we both tried not to think about it most of the time. But I definitely felt more compelled to talk about it than he did.

Why can't guys talk about shit? I've had this problem with every guy I've ever been with. They won't fucking talk about emotional problems.

 

[Xorkoth]

Why can't guys talk about shit? I've had this problem with every guy I've ever been with. They won't fucking talk about emotional problems.

Not all guys are like that. But the reason is because in this society boys tend to be raised with this idea that you need to be stoic and not talk about feelings, that talking about feelings is weak or womanly or something. It's sort of a shame thing, or a weakness thing. I mean in reality, it's a weakness to not be able to talk about emotional problems, but it's perceived to be the opposite of that. Hell, there are a lot of men who won't even share emotionally with anyone for any reason, whether it's about a problem or not. Like, my dad's dad never said he loved his kids to them. They all knew he did, he showed them love, he was a great dad, but he couldn't say it.

But yeah in my relationships as an adult, which has just been 2 long-term ones, I'm the one who has been better at talking about emotional problems. Fortunately I was raised well in that regard, my dad is bad at it because he was raised traditionally but my mom is great at it and my dad never tried to instill his limitations in me.

 

[JessFR]

Yeah I know, there are exceptions. It's just really frustrating. It's been a problem in every serious relationship I've had. That he wouldn't talk about our problems or his problems and would just rather ignore it.

In the situation I was writing about in the above post it was particularly difficult. Because we were both hurting and at the time all either of us had for support was he other. Nobody else knew about the shit we'd done and why we'd done it. I understood why, but his refusal to talk about it made it very hard for me.

It's not that I didn't find talking about it painful too, but unlike him I felt compelled to talk about it even if it's painful to do so. Where as he would avoid talking about it no matter what.

I know not every man is like that. But all the ones I've had relationships with have been. Which isn't particularly many but it's enough. Not just sexual/romantic relationships. Even platonic friendships I've seen this problem.

Oh god, and my fucking brother. Every time I ask anything about how he's doing or if he's ok... I get the same shit. "Dun worry about it!", "Dun worry about it!". Fucking maddening.

It's frustrating. I get that talking about this sort of thing can be painful and I frequently don't want to do it either. The difference is that much as I avoid talking about my issues, I feel compelled to do it and eventually that compulsion outweighs my desire to avoid the pain associated with talking about emotional issues.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah. Honestly, we never had much of a problem with our conscience with stealing from large chain stores.

But stealing from individuals, and small individually owned businesses where it would hurt an individual person. That was hard on our conscience.

We did it cause we were so desperate. But still, we knew it was wrong. We'd cope with it by trying not to think about it or talk about it. And by letting ourselves believe we were just bad people. We knew what regular normal society would think about us and it was easier to just tell ourselves what they'd think of us was simply true. That we were bad people and deserved bad things to happen to us.

Like I said before, most of the time you'd think we really didn't care. Cause we'd talk about it like it was the most casual ordinary thing in the world. One time, something we did made the news. Slow news day I guess. It was just a segment covering Easter and it mentioned about how not everyone was well behaved for some event we were at and they were talking to this guy who had had a large amount of money stolen from him. I'm fairly sure they were talking about us. We were there that day and we stole that money. That exact amount in that place at that time. So they had to be talking about us. My and the guy I did this shit with.

That made me feel pretty shitty. I thought about telling him about what I'd seen on the news but I didn't. Cause I knew it would hurt him, and what would be the point? We had already spent the money and it was a crime of opportunity so it wouldn't have been feasible to repay him. But yeah I felt pretty shitty for it.

The main reason I felt so bad about it was cause of how happy I was that we'd done it at the time. We saw the opportunity, it was just chance, so we took it. And it covered our drugs for both of us for the whole day. So we were both pretty happy at the time. We were worried about getting enough money for our drugs that day so when we saw the opportunity to steal the money and saw it was enough to cover us for the whole day and then some, we were both so relieved and happy we didn't have much time to feel bad for how some innocent person just paid the price for us. Which is what I mean, if you were a fly on the wall watching us then you'd have thought we were horrible heartless people. That we just took this guys money for our drug habit and didn't give a shit how it would have hurt them.

Heroin addiction does bad shit to your conscience.

Point is though, it's all a coping mechanism. We cared. We knew it was wrong, we knew we were hurting people and we went to a lot of effort to try and get money without hurting anyone. We might have been too relieved at the time to feel bad about it, but I felt pretty horrible for it the next day especially after seeing it on the news. And I know it bothered him too. And most of the time we were successful with getting money without hurting people, but every now and then we found ourselves with few options but to do something that would hurt someone. And we knew we would keep doing it so we just put it out of our minds.

So yeah, watching us you'd have thought we didn't care at all. That we were immoral lying stealing junkies. And that's how we thought about ourselves too. But we weren't. It hurt us a lot how much suffering we were causing. And we certainly weren't lazy. Most of our time and effort went because we were desperately trying to get money without hurting people. If we truly didn't care we could have just stolen all the time and it would have been a lot easier.

I think that's a lot of the reason we never felt bad about stealing or people stealing from large chain stores or begging for money. Most of our money came from pan handling. And that involved lots of lying too. But we never felt bad about it. Not cause we thought it was ok but just cause it was so minor and harmless compared to our alternatives.

In my experience this describes most criminals. There are some assholes out there that just like it. They do it even if they don't have too. Neither of us had any time or respect for those kinds of people. But most criminals we knew were like us. Acting out of desperation and feeling like shit for it. Trying to cope using shitty justifications or just not talking about it at all. And the drugs of course. The drugs helped a lot.

I vividly remember thinking about how we looked so normal. People would just see us and think we were just a normal young couple with no idea what we'd done and what we were capable of. And I'd think about how disgusted they would be with us if they knew the truth. People have no idea the criminal element going on right in front of them.

We all have our own moral codes. Even for all the bad shit we did, we had no time for people who REALLY didn't care, who'd tell stories about crimes they'd committed or supposedly committed like they were showing off. People who'd steal even when they had other options when we would go to so much effort to avoid hurting people. We both hated that shit.

I generally tried harder than he did to talk about what we were doing. Cause well, there aren't many people who will be able to relate to this kinda shit and what we were going through. But he'd never want to talk about it. And generally I wouldn't push it. As is usually the case with these kind of running partnerships where it's a guy and a girl, he tried to protect me from getting too involved in criminal shit. So he was usually more directly responsible for what we did when it came to this kinda thing. I'm certainly not innocent. But it meant I didn't want to push him to talk about it when it was bothering me.

We both tried to protect each other, and we both tried not to think about it most of the time. But I definitely felt more compelled to talk about it than he did.

Why can't guys talk about shit? I've had this problem with every guy I've ever been with. They won't fucking talk about emotional problems.

Well said, and very insightful post. Indeed, herion addiction does nothing for the sense of self. There is the stigma to deal with, both of heroin and addiction, and then it also tends to require engaging in some form of unethical conduct given how stigmatized/illegal the stuff is. Methadone was a game changer precisely because it allowed me to abstain from all the unethical shit I had to do when I was using heroin.

Having to lie and manipulate people and hide my life of using heroin from people probably did more damage than any theft I engaged in, not that that did much good in terms of my sense of self either. But it was the necessity of deceiving people closest to me when I was using heroin that hurt most of all I think.

And Jess, you just haven't met the right guys I think. Most men don't like advertising that they are in touch with their emotional lives because it's "not very masculine" (which is entirely bullshit). But we're definitely out there.