Terrible Liar
aka Budding Thief

I never had a piggy bank. One of those you place on a blanket and hit with a hammer when full. No, what I had was a barrel bank. A small, perhaps three inches high and as many around brown and yellow thin-metal barrel with a slot for coins in the un-openable lid and a locked little bottom hatch for coin retrieval (key hidden somewhere by parents) that you could most likely pry open with a hair-pin if you had the mind to, or a paper clip.

I never had the mind to.

Until.

Until that fateful day (I think I was five at the time, perhaps six) when I was given my weekly allowance of one Swedish krona and immediately ran out the door to spend it all. In today’s U.S. money, a Swedish krona then would have been worth, say, two maybe three dollars.

A krona was one hundred cent equivalents called öre.

So, with one hundred öre in my pocket, burning as many holes to be sure, I first stopped by the little neighborhood tobacco and candy store to squander fifteen of those one hundred öre on, yes, candy; leaving eighty-five to go.

Brief side note: Had Candy Anonymous existed then, I should have been enrolled (or committed, pick your verb) for I was a candy addict.

Happily chewing away on whatever sweets were assaulting my teeth that day, I strolled down to the town square, which among other things sported a cinema that now displayed, for the upcoming Sunday matinée, One Hundred Leagues Under the Sea—the poster showed this amazing, many-tentacled and huge creature devouring the little submarine. Amazing. Fascinating. Oh, man, this was a movie I had to, had to, see.

Just to make sure it wasn’t R-rated or anything (Sunday matinées rarely were), I checked to see if I’d indeed be allowed in. And yes, come to find out that this (most likely watered down) version was suitable for children.

Really. Oh, man, now I triple-had-to see it. There was only one problem: the Sunday matinée was one krona, and I had just busted mine. I was fifteen öre short. Oh, well, surely, surely Mom or Dad would see things my way and pitch in the missing fifteen öre, surely? They loved me, right?

I more or less ran all the way home to ask them. I found them both at home (must have been Saturday afternoon, then, Dad back early from work) as I stormed into our third-floor apartment. Guess what, guess what!

“What?” Lisbet, Mom, more annoyed at my racket than curious. Dad said nothing; reading the paper or something. I don’t even think he looked up. In his “do not disturb” mode, smoking his pipe.

At about two hundred miles an hour, I told her about this really, really amazing, amazing movie that’s going to show at Saga (the name of the cinema) as the Sunday matinée.

“Sounds like a grown-up movie,” she said.

“No, no. It’s not. I can watch it. I checked. Children allowed.”

“Well, good for you.”

“Only,” I said, “I’ve already spent fifteen öre, so I’m a bit short.”

“On what?” said Mom, even though she knew me and already knew.

“Some candy,” I said.

“Fifteen öre short, huh?” said my Dad, now suddenly disturbable and looking up from his paper taking me in through a tobacco haze.

“Yes,” I said. “Fifteen. Just fifteen. So please, please, could I, could you, would you?”

Well, I’m sure they exchanged glances and tacitly agreed that this very moment was one where I was to be taught a financial lesson along the lines of not squandering what you have in case you need it for something else that you want even more.

So the answer: “No.” My dad.

“Moooom!”

“You heard him,” she said.

“But Moooom!”

“Don’t ‘Moooom’ me. That’s final.”

“But that’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair about it?” Dad wondering.

“How was I to know this amazing, amazing movie was going to show when I spent the fifteen öre.”

“Well, that’s tough,” he said.

“Mom?” Making very big, begging eyes at her now.

“You heard him,” she informed me again.

“But, but…” The writing, however, was writ both large and clear on the proverbial wall. This was going nowhere. “It’s only fifteen öre,” I informed back.

“It’s fifteen öre that you don’t have,” more information for my benefit. This time from pipe-smoking male parent, now returning to the paper.

“You can deduct it from next week’s allowance,” I brillianted and voiced simultaneously.

“No,” said Dad.

“If you lend me fifteen I’ll return twenty-five next allowance. You’ll make money.” No one could resist a good deal like that.

“No,” said Dad, not even looking up.

“But, but…” Clean out of ideas now. But this just wasn’t fair, not at all fair. They were such monsters. Both of them. It’s not as if they didn’t have the money. Fifteen öre was nothing to them. Totally unfair. I even think I managed to squeeze out a tear or two, just to show them how tortured I was by their cruelty. If they noticed, they were not impressed (I had used the tear tactic before, and it only worked the first couple of times; Mom getting wise to things at about the third attempt).

Oh, man. There was nothing for it. And Sunday matinées were always one of a kind, one showing only. That really amazingly great, great movie that I just had to, had to, had to see would be gone by next Sunday. So these people, who called themselves my parents, and who supposedly loved me, had basically torn my heart out and slapped it on the ground and kicked it back and forth like a football between them just for fun.

Such monsters.

Then a recent memory surfaced. Along with some secret hope.

My friend Ake was my age, and he lived with his family across the landing from us. Ake was a lot more daring than I was and not a little unruly, to be honest. Up to things most of the time, if not all of the time. Daring things. Some good and some not so. And one of the things he had been up to recently was figuring out how, by the use of a regular table knife, you could tease coins out of a piggy bank (he had one of those, not a barrel). And he had succeeded, had figured it out, and had then showed me how he did it. The nerve. But it looked simple enough. Perhaps, perhaps.

I knew where they kept my barrel bank. And (whispered a little devil in my ear) were not the coins in it mine after all? Yes, sir. My coins, my money imprisoned and unspendable. And all I needed was fifteen measly öre.

I could ask Ake to help me, but second thoughts warned that he might want a cut of the spoils so this would have to be a solo job: me and a table knife and some remembering exactly how he had done it along with some nimble fingers.

But how would I go about this without them hearing me? And, truth be told, I wasn’t even sure I could do it. Ake was always, and I mean always, a little bit better than I was, at everything—football, running, jumping, throwing, easing coins out of piggy (barrel) banks, you name it.

Still, that movie. I just had to see it.

So, this mission, should I choose to accept it (yes, yes), would involve the following (I looked around, trying to picture the sequence of events): quietly moving one chair—that meant lifting it—from the kitchen table to the counter with the cupboards (my barrel bank was on the top shelf of the cupboard farthest to the right, pretty sure—at least last time I saw it).

Then, silently grab the little barrel and place it on the counter. Open the cutlery drawer and select an appropriate table knife, a butter knife might be perfect.

Ease the blade into the slot and then tilt the barrel so that a coin or two settle on the blade. Then slowly ease the blade back out, and if the slot was wide enough, the coins would ride the blade all the way out of the barrel and into my welcoming little hand. Yes, that’s how Ake had done it and it now seemed straightforward enough.

Make sure I get at least fifteen öre out, then replace the knife, and the barrel bank, and the chair, and, and, and then storm into the living room to share the fantastic news with the monsters that I’d just found fifteen öre in my jacket so now I could see the movie after all. Isn’t that great?

I was alone in the kitchen and could hear them talking in the living room, but there was no guarantee that they would stay put. They could come into the kitchen at any moment for any reason, and I must not, not be seen performing my barrel bank surgery for then all would be lost.

Case in point, Dad just came into the kitchen. Made himself a sandwich, or began to, rather. Discovered that we were out of the sliced sandwich sausage that he liked. He asked Mom if we had any somewhere, but I heard her say that we were fresh out.

“I’ll just run down to the store, then,” said Dad. Which made Mom appear in the kitchen as well.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I meant to get some yesterday, but never made it to the store.”

“It’s okay,” he said.

“I’ll come with you,” she said. “Need some air, anyway. Stretch my legs.”

I could not believe my luck.

“You want to come, too?” she asked me.

“Me, oh, no, no, not really,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” she said.

A few minutes later I found myself alone—a-lone—in the kitchen. Our local grocery store was about a five-minute walk away. Add five minutes for shopping and then five minutes back; as many minutes as I needed öre, in other words.

I scrambled.

And, and I was good at it.

The first liberated coin was a ten-öre piece. The second was another ten-öre piece as well. Made sense, for they were small and thin, and slid out on the blade with room to spare.

This made twenty. Mission accomplished.

But then, prompted by the little devil in my ear I’m sure, greed set in. The barrel was almost half full of my, yes, my riches. A few more coins couldn’t hurt, could it? So, I set out to liberate a few more, and then a few more, and then a few more after that—the little devil applauding all the way.

By now I had stopped counting, but I had quite the little pile, and, yes, they would be back soon, so that would have to do it. Knife back in the drawer, barrel back on the shelf, coins into my pocket, I’d count them later, chair back to the table.

Mission accomplished, indeed. I could not believe my luck. Not only would I see the movie, I was rich to boot.

:

Here’s the real mystery: how did she know? Does she check my pockets while I’m sleeping? Or does she check the weight of the barrel bank on a regular basis and now found it too light? I’ll never know. I never asked her, and she’s gone now. But this is what happened next.

It’s Sunday morning and I’m walking around the apartment with a small fortune in my pocket, waiting for one in the afternoon to arrive so I can, yes, first inform them of the good news—that I had found fifteen öre, and would go to the movies after all—and then head down for the two o’clock showing. Life could not be more grand.

Until.

Until, in the kitchen, female parent looks at me strangely and asks what that noise is, what that soft clatter of what sounds like coins in my pocket might be.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“But I do,” says Mom.

I shrugged my shoulders in complete ignorance, “No idea.”

“What do you have in your pocket, then?”

“Which one?”

“That one,” she says pointing to my right-hand pocket, actually bulging a little from the rescued trove (which did clatter a little as I moved around, she was certainly right about that and I was totally stupid not to have thought of that).

“This one?” I say, pointing.

“Precisely,” she says. “That one.”

“What have I in it? Is that what you’re asking?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking,” she confirms.

“Nothing,” I try.

“Let me see,” she says, and moves toward me.

“Oh, you mean what’s left over from my allowance? The eighty-five öre I haven’t spent yet.”

“Let’s see,” she says.

This is problematic. How to delve into that trove and bring out only, and precisely, eighty-five öre? But I give it a desperate go, and plunk about one krona and forty-five öre on the table.

“That’s more than eighty-five,” she points out. “And seems to me that you have some more left in the pocket. Do you?”

I look down and see that the pocket is still bulging a little, which has not escaped her attention. There is no getting out of this one. I would have to show her. I delve back in and come out with most of the coins, then return to get the rest. All onto the kitchen table now.

“Where did you get this?” she wants to know.

“I found it,” I say.

“Well, lucky you,” she says. “How much did you find?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t know. I had not had an opportunity to count the stash. But it was a lot, I knew that.

“Let’s see,” she says. “Let’s count it.”

There’s nothing for it, I am doomed. The coins make a small pile on the Formica top table (which pile, by the way, also included my eighty-five öre left over from my one-krona allowance).

She surveys the pile for a while. “Oh, my,” she says.

I don’t say anything.

“So let’s count it,” she says and begins.

The pile adds up to four kronor and sixty-three öre. A small fortune—eighty-five of which, I stress, was my honestly gotten allowance remainder.

“Where on earth did you find all this?” she asks me, with a dangerously straight face.

“Well,” I begin, dreaming up the scenario as I go, “you know that crossing down by the square?”

“You mean the new pedestrian crossing?”

“Yes, exactly, that’s the one.” Still dreaming up at a hundred miles an hour. “You know that island halfway across Highway One?”

“Yes, I know it.”

“That’s where I found it.”

Give the woman credit, she maintained her straight face. “That’s where you found four kronor and sixty-three öre?”

“No, no. Not that much. Eighty-five öre in that pile there—I pointed—is what’s left over from my allowance you gave me yesterday.”

“Ah,” she said, still straight-facing it. “So then,” and she does the math in her head, she’s good at that, “you found a pile of coins adding up to three kronor and seventy-eight öre?”

“If you say so.”

“In a pile?”

“Yes.”

“On that new pedestrian crossing island down by the square?”

“Yes.” Making my eyes as large and innocent as I could possibly make them, nodding all the while. “Yes, exactly.”

Never once does she so much as smile, although internally she must have been bursting at the seams by this time.

Then she dons a very menacing face and stoops down—like some hovering troll—to look me straight in the eyes: “Where. Did. You. Get. This. Money.” A very serious question now, and I saw that the game was up. All the way up.

“Barrel bank,” I mumbled.

She had straightened back up by now. “Speak up,” she said. “I can’t hear you.”

“Barrel bank.”

“You found the key?”

“No, I used a butter knife.”

“Ah.” Apparently not unfamiliar with the procedure involved.

I nodded.

“Well,” she said. “This all goes back.”

“All of it? My eighty-five öre as well?”

“Yes, all of it.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Stealing is not fair.”

“It’s my money, from my barrel bank,” stressing “my” twice. “That’s not stealing.”

That reined her in a little. She gave this some thought. Then said, “It’s stealing from yourself.”

“Stealing from yourself is not stealing.”

“End of discussion,” she said and began scooping up the coin pile.

I could have cried at this point but I didn’t, even though I was furious to the point of tears. Not only could I kiss the movie goodbye, I had also lost the remainder of my allowance. Instead, I began, “But…”

“No buts. Let this be you a lesson.”

“But…”

“No buts, I said.”

At this point I might have squeezed out a tear or two, I don’t remember. But the game was definitely up and I had just been robbed. Mom had finished scooping the coins into her left hand, and now opened the cupboard door and brought down my barrel bank. “You want to put the coins back in?” she asked me.

Talk about adding insult to injury. “No,” I said and left; stomped out of the kitchen and left the apartment (slamming the entry door) to sulk and lick wounds.

:

Now, here is an interesting thing: before this stealing from myself I had never stolen anything, from anyone. Never. Ever. But, looking back, this little episode seems to have spawned my kleptomaniac career, since for the next almost ten years I would pilfer just about any loose change that wasn’t nailed down and then glued, to boot. From small change dishes, from tables and drawers and cupboards, and before long, from pockets (others’) and wallets and purses. Not sure what the connection is, but I think the logic runs along the lines of getting back at them for stealing my eighty-five residual öre; yes, something along those lines.

Also interesting: while I became a keen little thief, I was terrible at not getting caught, and I think that every coin deed eventually ended up with me confessing and having to beg the victim’s forgiveness (Dad, Mom, grandmas, friends, neighbors, the list goes on), sometimes a Dad-spanking would follow for good measure. Correction: there were a few times when I pilfered money out of wallets in public changing rooms that did not cause a slide down the confession-forgiveness-spanking slope; but as a rule, yes, and always humiliating beyond boyhood belief.

And an almost perpetual bad conscience.

At sixteen, I had finally grown out of it, but that’s another story.

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