Accidental Kleptomaniac

I hung out with Aunt Bev today, so naturally, I have a story for that.

Our plan for the day was to hit the local college to try and find a lady I used to know to help with a paranormal problem that is above me and involves things that are not nice, and then head out to eat to celebrate Aunt Bev's upcoming birthday with all her four billion birthday coupons. We had just left the college and were driving down the road when we hit a stoplight. Aunt Bev was rooting through her purse, which was nothing new, as I was watching the road. The next thing I know it she says, "I accidentally stole this."

I'll let you let that sink in for a few seconds.

I looked over briefly to find that she had a piece to a weed whacker in her purse. With that, she says to me, "I'm a kleptomaniac."

I lost my shiz.

As we drove off into the non sunset and down the road, the story began to slowly unravel. Several weeks ago, Aunt Bev was at the Home Depot looking for a part for her weed whacker. She had taken the part off of her weed whacker to compare, looked at several, found the right one and bought it and took it home. She was going through her purse a little later and pulled out what she thought was the part she had taken from her weed whacker, only it was in an unopened bag. Slowly, she realized she had somehow stolen a weed whacker part from the store, though she's still unsure how it got in her bag. And better yet, it didn't even fit her weed whacker.

At this point I was laughing so hard I was surprised I wasn't crying, and it also wasn't likely I was the right person to tell this to, because I had no plans on letting this go. It helped none when she began to tell me about how she keeps wanting to take it back, but she doesn't know how. If she takes it up to the register and tries to explain, they might roll her eyes and not believe her, and she may get in trouble. Her plan was to sneak it back in and nonchalantly put it back where she got it and put an end to this madness. As I'm picturing her doing this, I'm so hysterical in laughter that I'm lucky I can see. Then we passed a cop car.

If that's not good timing, I'm not sure what is.

As we passed the cop car, I finished telling her that the popo were after her so we better not get pulled over and have them find the merchandise on her, I suggested that since we were a quarter of a mile from Home Depot that we should return the item after we got finished eating. She said that it was up to me, but she'd rather me not get involved because then I'd get arrested, too. I know she was kidding, but I pointed out that I didn't think anyone would arrest us for reverse shoplifting. Also, I assured her there was no way I wasn't going to be part of this, because it was too epic and total blog material, so I wasn't about to miss out on a chance to be involved, as opposed to just write about this.

While we were eating, Aunt Bev managed to decide what she wanted, lose it on the page, spend three minutes searching for it, all while the waitress waited there and I busted out laughing because all I could think about was how she was an accidental kleptomaniac. Later, after the wait staff had passed our table twice to go and sing birthday songs to other tables, they finally made it around to sing Happy Birthday to Aunt Bev. I was still laughing, because all I could think of was how we were going to reverse shoplift and it was going to be ridiculous.

Once we finished our meals, we went over to the scene of the crime. We walked in the doors casually, the part number of the piece we were returning in our heads so that we could find it first, scurry it out of her purse, and then shove it back on the shelf in its rightful place. All was going well; we had found the part on the shelves after much joking about how Home Depot would no longer be selling it when we returned, and then she'd be stuck with the part that was going to haunt her forever. We were ready to put it back, and I was serving as the lookout, when I spotted danger. For the first time in our lives, someone actually came up to us in the Home Depot and asked us if we needed help. I know, guys, I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it myself, either. It was magical and myth like, but posed a serious danger to our plan.

I don't know that it helped that we looked at each other and busted out laughing. I don't know that it helped that we couldn't stop giggling, and by we, I mean me. I just sounded like I stole something, and he wouldn't go away. He turned his back to us, but was but a few short feet from us, and we froze. Do we giggle more, or keep giggling, in my case? Do we give up the ghost of that plan? Do we run? Do we hide? Do we... Oh, never mind. This is the part where he gets a call on his handheld and walks away, in case you were wondering.

We looked left, we looked right, and in the blink of an eye she had the sucker on the shelf, and we were in the next aisle laughing and looking at chain saws. I don't think she needs a chain saw after this...

When we left the store after making a purchase, we were laughing so hard at anything that reminded us of her accidentally stealing something that we had the cashier guy laughing with us, even though he had no idea what he was laughing at. We could still hear him laughing as we walked out the door. That's how we do it, folks. We keep it mysterious and leave them laughing.

Although that would have been enough for one day, my day went on to be absolutely ridiculous. Three highlights include the following.

When we were leaving Red Robin, we passed these very large steel flowers that were put up by the shopping center the restaurant was in. This reminded me of a story, just in case you didn't think I had a story for everything, because I totally do.

Years and years ago when the plaza was first built and my grandma was still alive, my mom, Aunt Sarah, grandma and I were all out enjoying a day at one of the nearby restaurants. The steel flowers had been freshly erected (Tehehe, I said erected.), and Aunt Sarah, who was in her early eighties at the time, saw them, turned to me, and the following took place.

Aunt Sarah: "Oh, Cassie, look at those flowers. I want them. We're just going to have to come right on back in dark clothes in the middle of the night and steal them. You'll help me, won't you, Cassie? We're just going to come and get them and take them on home."

Me: "Aunt Sarah, I don't think we'll be able to handle those. They look heavy."

Aunt Sarah: "Sure we will. We'll just bring our shovels and get them on out of there. No one will ever catch us."

It's a twenty four hour shopping center...

And, of course, she was kidding. I hope.

When Aunt Bev and I made it home from our ridiculous journey, my mom pulled in nearly exactly after us. While we were outside talking, some guy went driving down the road, which wouldn't be abnormal, except we heard him before we saw him or heard his car. He had his windows down, and as he got closer, he was yelling "I ALREADY TOLD YOU WHERE IT WAS!" over and over at the top of his lungs. We could hear him clear after we had stopped seeing him. I would hate to be whomever he was going home to, but I enjoyed how ridiculous this guy was. That's reality show material right there, man. And if you get discovered because of me, random guy, I totally expect twenty percent of your paycheck for being your agent. And referrals. I expect them, too.

On a more serious note that will turn ridiculous soon, my friend and I got caught up in a bad paranormal case in which we are currently looking for someone who deals with darker spirits to assist us with, as it's gotten too much for the two of us to handle. This is pretty new for me, this having to ask for help thing, so I spent hours online looking and looking, only to come up empty when it came with finding someone in the area to deal with what we need dealt with. Exasperated, my poor friend who is also involved in this got this IM in this exact fashion.

"WHO DO I HAVE TO SLEEP WITH IN ORDER TO GET US SOME HELP?"

*Pause*

"NO, SERIOUSLY, TELL ME!!!"

This turned into a big thing in which I began to tease that I was going to post ads on Craigslist advertising free sex for their services and see if that gets us help faster. Not only would I be a very homely looking hooker, but I'm good with not having sex with random people ever. And I do mean ever. I'll just leave you all with that.