Tara’s Takes
When I was in college, I worked at Marcotte Jewelry in Marshall. I distinctly remember the day when a customer was in with her young daughter, maybe around 6 years old, to pick up a repair and visit with John, the owner.
In addition to jewelry, Marcotte carries watches, frames, clocks and crystal. In some of the crystal, we’d use different colored glass beads to make the store look nice and match the themed windows out front. This memory was from the summer, around July 4, so the glass beads used for decoration were either red or blue.
The beads didn’t have any real value. They were simply decoration.
As the customer visited with John, her daughter walked around the store. She was polite and, of course, liked to look at all the pretty stuff. After they finished, they headed out the door and on their way.
A few short minutes later, they returned. At this time, the daughter was crying and the mom brought her in holding her hand. Of course, we were concerned. But the child wasn’t hurt. The mother instructed her to open her hand and look John in the eyes.
The child had taken a single red bead — something of no value. The mom made her bring it back, admit what she had done and apologize.
John and I felt awful for the child because she was very upset. But the mom was insistent that the value wasn’t the issue, it was the act. After they left, John commented that the young girl would never make that mistake again. The lesson was sure to stick.
It stuck with me, too. This was well before I had kids, but I always wanted my kids to understand it isn’t the value, it’s the act. Stealing is stealing.
Compare that to the situation Brady and I experienced last Wednesday. We are in a three-week stretch that we don’t have a driver for our papers from Sioux Falls. Also, with four papers, we can’t fit them all in the van. So Brady and I both drive to Sioux Falls after all papers are sent to the printer. We sorted the papers on their loading dock, loaded our two vehicles and then headed to Pipestone where we split in two directions to do the route.
Before splitting off, we stopped at McDonald’s. After ordering, we grabbed our cups and filled them at the pop dispenser. While waiting for our food and discussing delivery, two young girls, probably 11 or 12, pull up. One was on a scooter and one on a bike. Just as they were pulling up, the workers set a mobile order on the counter. We assumed they had placed the order and were picking it up.
They casually walked in and grabbed cups before heading to the pop dispenser. If that was their order sitting on the counter, this made perfect sense.
However, they put the lids on their pops, grabbed straws and held their pops down at their sides.
About the same time, a completely unrelated group of teenage boys came in. Some of them went to the screen to order and the others picked up their mobile order after confirming it was theirs. They were typical teenage boys loud with jokes and roughhousing.
The two girls used that opportunity to look to make sure no one was at the counter, put their cups below counter height and quickly walked out the front door, only checking over their shoulder to make sure they weren’t caught.
I stood there in shock. At that age, I would have never thought to do something so bold. Brady laughed at it, too, and was surprised they were daring enough to do something so dumb.
When our food was ready they called our number, set it on the counter and walked away so I couldn’t even talk to anyone on it.
As Brady and I left, we watched the girls cross over to the park, drinks in hand. We talked about how brazen the girls were and how the fear of getting in trouble with the cops doesn’t hold the same weight as it used to. It made me wonder where that fear went — or, not so much fear, but respect for authority. What happened to the parents who made their kids bring back a decorative stone? Were these girls really brazen or did they have no fear because they wouldn’t get in trouble even if they got caught? Is stealing a pop no big deal? Is there a price point where it would become big deal?
I also think about the business. Many places, you can’t fill your own drink because of theft. Even chain restaurants are locallyowned in small towns. People want businesses in small towns, but stealing from a business at that level has a much larger effect because they don’t do the volume of business someone in a large city does.
I wasn’t going to chase these girls down and reprimand them, but it did spark a conversation between Brady and I. I also talked to my other kids about it, about the morals behind it.
If we want kids to grow up to be good people, it starts with small things like decorative rocks and McDonald’s pop.
