Emma (not her real name) remembers stealing for the first time at just eight years old.
The 21-year-old Carleton psychology student laughs over the phone as she describes sneaking up the fire escape of her elementary school at lunch to steal treats from her teacher’s desk.
“The teacher had rewards [cookies] for us when we did something good,” she says. “She didn’t give me one and I thought I did my homework really well.”
“When I didn’t get a reward for doing something well, I took it.”
At the time, the student say she would describe the acts as “vengeful.”
“It was kind of a revenge thing, like, ‘Hah, you didn’t give me a reward so I’m going to take everybody’s now,’ ” she says.
At home, the stealing manifested itself through brother-sister rivalry.
“When I was younger, when it was just to be a little brat, I always took things from my brother,” she says. “If he made me angry I’d hide vital bits of his Lego so he couldn’t build a tower.”
Thirteen years later, the motive has changed but Emma’s still stealing.
“I don’t need to do it,” she says, “but it’s usually under the influence of alcohol, so everything seems much funnier, but every morning when I wake up in my apartment and discover something new I say, dammit, I thought I kicked that habit, but apparently not.”
Speaking from her apartment, Emma says she’s surrounded by items she’s stolen, many of which are from campus.
The most recent addition is a blue lecture chair.
“It’s like a little blue chair with an attachable table that you fold up and down,” she says.
“When I got more mature, when I got really wise, it turned into a different kind of stealing.”
What was vengeance has turned into a not-so-common hobby.
“I guess [you steal] when you see bigger, better, shinier things and decide you want it and it’s kind of a challenge,” she says.
The biggest challenge Emma says she’s dealt with so far was stealing fish from a pet store with a friend.
“We’d walk into the shop with a net and then, while the people weren’t looking, we’d scoop a fish out, put it in our pocket, put it in the bucket of water [they left outside the store] and take it home.”
She says she doesn’t just steal for the challenge. Sometimes, Emma says she targets objects out of necessity.
“I don’t have any money to buy myself things, so I just kind of have to be resourceful,” she says. “Some things are for need but other times it’s just for sport.”
Emma says she targets campus residence most often to save money on toilet paper.
“[The cleaners] go in the toilets and I go in after and I take fresh rolls,” she says. “We need toilet paper all the time. I live with five people. We need it.”
The key to getting objects in and out and remaining uncaught is nonchalance, she says.
“When you take something big and noticeable and then walk down a crowded corridor . . . people just watch you, but if you act all nonchalant then they don’t really do anything and they offer to help sometimes.”
The bigger the object, the less frequently she steals. “It’s less frequent because you can’t keep walking out of places with huge items,” Emma says.
The habit is now more than a decade old and Emma says it’s become “socially reinforced” by her friends. “Everyone seems to think it’s hilarious,” she says, although she adds her roommates are trying to discourage her taste for large items.
“Our apartment’s getting very cluttered,” she says, laughing.
In elementary school, the consequences for stealing were relatively minor. At worst, Emma says she felt guilty and sick.
“When I put the empty jar back I had a tummy ache and I felt guilty because if anyone else did anything good during the day then they weren’t going to get a cookie,” she says.
These days, getting caught carries a heftier consequence.
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets caught,” Emma says jokingly, adding, “I feel sneaky, it’s quite exciting.”
She says she has yet to have any run-ins with the police but she thinks it would help kick her habit.
“I’ll stop, I’ll stop,” she says.