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why crime does not pay
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Readin Chris' vivid accounts of Agent X's daring heists never fail to bring me back painful memories of when i was young , fresh and ..

naive.

My shoplifting habits was cultivated at a ripe old age of what , 6 ? I was still in pre-primary ( we used to have that but they scrapped it . yes i am THAT old ) school and was still cute enough to have my relatives fawning over my adorable chubby face.

Behind that angelic facade however lies a criminal.

I swear to god though it happened so long ago and usually people only start to remember events after a certain age , i can still replay what happened on that fateful day in a clear concise manner.

So the 6 year old me tagged along with my maid to the provision shop downstairs and being the boisterous brat that i was , insisted that she buy this tube of fruit chews for me.

Mission failed.

My little devious mind started hatching a plan and i quietly slipped the sweets between my cotton shorts and panties and held up my shorts so that my stash wouldnt fall out.

I was very happy and feeling way smug on the walk home but it was a struggle holding up my flimsy shorts so yeah the sweets rolled out and onto the pavement.

My maid looked at me and without saying anything dragged me back into the shop to apologise to the shopkeeper and she paid for the sweets on my behalf.

She didn't tell a single soul about the misdemeanor ( thank god ) but it was a terrible feeling watching the 7pm drama serial because it so happened that the particular episode showed a young thief getting apprehended. Wah lan.. Talk about coincidence !!

So fast forward 7 years.

I was 13 and a freshie in secondary school.

As you all would know by now i was a authentic true-blue Ah Lian , colourful hokkien vocabulary , irksome attitude and all.

Playing truant was second nature to me.

My brush with getting caught 7 years ago apparently didn't deter me at all because by the time i was almost graduating from primary 6 , i was shoplifting on a regular basis with my best friend cum neighbour , Jo.

Back then we simply called stealing "kop" , e.g

"Hey , let's kop this pencil okay ?"

So kop we did.

The bookshop outside our primary school was our favourite kopping venue because it was simply such a cluttered and claustrophobic shop with aging old aunties for shopkeepers that kopping was such a breeze that i don't really remember payin for any small items from that shop since primary 6.

Our modus operandi was simple enough. Just take , slip ( into pockets , bag etc ) , pretend to buy something else ( usually somethin cheap ) and go.

My collection of stolen items were startling. From expensive high-end pens to cheap "country flags" erasers that were so popular in my time for playing "rubber matches" with.

footnote : rubber matches were actually silly classroom games where two contestants flip their erasers with only one finger. The objective is to flip your eraser over so that it rests on top of your opponent's and when that happens you win and the winner gets to keep his opponent's eraser. FUN.

It wasn't that the both of us were from poor families who could barely afford stationery. Ironically we were pretty affluent kids whose dads drove a Mercedes each.

As it is with most shoplifting cases , the thrill of owning something new without having to pay for it was probably the reason why we did it.

Our kopping sprees became more daring and we "upgraded" to the neighbourhood NTUC supermarket. We still stuck to small items like candies but because we had become so bold and accustomed to kopping , we actually opened the candies and ate it INSIDE the supermarket while still walking down the isles a couple of times.

Or we would do a bit of "sampling" here and there , opening packets and popping a bit into our mouths and left it there if we didn't like it and if we did , it went into our pockets.

Then it started getting abit different after we got posted to different secondary schools. Once or twice a week we would skip classes together just to hang out though i must stress that we weren't meeting up for the sole purpose of stealing.

One fateful day , the two of us met up with another primary school chum of ours and we headed to Great World City. I can tell you what i wore then in detail because it was really gross.

Super mini bright orange skirt , black spaghetti strapped top with an overstuffed bra and get this. ..

BLACK STRAPPY 3 inch PLATFORMS !!! ( those super chunky kind )

Hell no.

We must have looked quite a sight , a trio of ostentatious pre-pubescent girls dressed in such garish togs , with the signature Ah Lian "360" ( or Sa Ba Lak in hokkien ) swagger in our walk and expletives peppering our speech.

Obnoxious.

As my secondary school classmates would put it ..

Fiona don't look like express student , lor !!

LOL.

We went into this popular accessories shop , Montip , and boy i loved Montip because i was into hair clips at that time and Montip has a really wide range of pretty ones.

My fingers started feeling itchy and while glancing at the surveillance camera and around to make sure no one was looking , i slipped a few hair clips into my long patent leather wallet.

Jo acted as the decoy and went to the counter to pay for the purchases while we walked confidently out.....

Only to be stopped by the salegirl.

"Excuse me , may i see whats inside your wallet ?"

FUCKED!

I knew i was in deep shit and i was torn between fleeing the scene and staying put but fuck lah , i was wearing platforms remember ??

I surrendered the hair clips to the irate salesgirl.

I was surprisingly calm and composed and i even managed to ask what was going to happen.

"We're going to call the police. Do you want to see the evidence on our surveillance camera ?"

The word "police" shook me hard and i grabbed the salesgirl's arm and begged her not to , or my parents would kill me.

"How old are you ?"

"13."

"13 and stealing !"

The salesgirl conferred with her supervisor while the three of us stood there with worried looks. They were lucky that they got off scot free.

"Okay , we'll give you a chance but you'll have to pay for these and we'll have to call your parents"

I nodded glumly and paid for my hairclips with a crisp $50 note.

"$50 ! And yet you are stealing ???"

So they called my dad and no doubt he was fucking furious as he yelled and ranted at me over the phone after the salesgirl had spoken to him.

"You're gonna get it when you get home !"

The worst part was anticipating the "something" i was goin to get from him. The 3 hours i spent at home waiting for the doorknob to turn was agonising. I was slumped next to the bed and crying my eyes out because my dad was a fucking disciplinarian and it wasnt too long ago when he had thrown a chair at me for dyeing my hair gold.

Surprisingly nothing painful happened but my dad threatened to disown me because i was such a disgrace and for the next two weeks he gave me the cold shoulder. Which wasn't so bad actually :p

From then on Jo and I were roused awake from our scheming little ways but that unfortunately did not deter us from blooming into chao Ah Lians.

Actually i'm damn sure that everyone of you has stolen something before when you were younger.. C'MON ! CONFESS !!!

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listenin to : franz ferdinand - well do ya do ya do ya want to ? lucky lucky you're so lucky !