Stealing is breaking the rules, right??

I'm participating in a blog link up for the first time that is hosted over at http://www.mamakatslosinit.com/.  I saw Connie participate in it and her post reminded me of the general annoyance of middle school and high school to which prompted me to remember a time that I indeed broke a rule my senior year of high school.

2.) A rule I broke.

My senior year of high school was a complete joke - I spent most of my time sitting in the library during one of many "study halls" sitting with a group of individuals reading magazines and chatting - I actually enjoyed this ritual and often wonder what those people are up to and how their lives are turning out.

Now our library was manned by your stereotypical librarian.  She was grouchy, set in her ways, gave the same presentation year after year about how to do a research paper and she watched us all like a hawk.   Our little group consisted of 2 skater girls, a future President of the United States (seriously - I won't be shocked when it happens), a granola loving girl born two decades too late, a tall gangly curly haired funny guy, a quiet tiny blond swimming girl and me.  We were serious trouble makers.

                                                             


This librarian had a stamp.  A stamp that spelled our her initials because see, when you went to the library during study hall you had to have a pre-initialed hall pass and she was too lazy to write out her initials had so many to sign that it was just easier for her to have a stamp.  If I recall correctly, the stamp had the letters BJZ on it and THAT is EXACTLY how it looked stamped on your yellow card.

It was similar looking to the one pictured below:

So about two weeks to the end of the school year all of the popular kids were planning this "prank" that consisted of water balloons and squirt guns or something along those lines and the rest of us were left in the dark.  Which, whatever...in general we had a really uneventful senior year.  No senior trip...we weren't allowed for whatever reason and we did have a nice dinner/dance but we really weren't the most ambitious group of kids. 

One day, I was feeling a little...adventureous.

I don't know what made me do it.  There was nothing to gain out of it.  I didn't even have plans for it when I went through with it...but I did it.  What you ask?

I stole the stamp.

I walked up to the desk when she was away...and I clipped the stamp off her desk and pocketed it.  I was so excited, did I really do this?  And what was I going to do?  I couldn't TELL people about it.

But I did.

I posted on my blog (which, gosh I wish I still had the link to) pictures of the stamp, I stamped my friends hands with it as I passed them in the hallways and each person had the look of amazement and awe in their face when they realized *I* had it. 

Word got around that the stamp was gone and that BJZ had to revert back to an older stamp of hers which just stamped LIB (short for library).  Word got around that BJZ was seriously pouting that her stamp was GONE.

I also had people that in the whole 8 years I had spent taking classes with them had never spoken a word come up to me and say, "I heard you've got the BJZ?"

I was so proud of myself and my ego had flared way beyond the size it should ever be.

However after a few days it all came crashing to a halt.

You see one of my friends mom worked as a study hall monitor at the school.  I adored her, she was/is a great lady (my bff Alicia and I often reminicse about her).  She came up to me one day and said, "Amber, I know you have it - but they think that Angela has it and they're talking about not letting her walk at graduation because of it."

Now - Angela was one of the skater girls.  She was gorgeous (and still is) and such a sweetheart, but at the time, she had the blue hair, tons of piercings and was really a part of the foundation of the new "punk" wave before it got really big.  So this made her an easy target, and I considered her a good friend so I couldn't let MY prank take graduation away from her. 

So I returned it the same way I stole it.  I waited for BJZ to walk away from her desk and I walked up and placed it next to the replacement.

And that was it.  It was over.

I don't know if the study hall monitor made the story up in an attempt to protect me or keep me from getting into serious trouble or if she just made it up just to install some fear into me - but for whatever reason she did it, it worked and I caved.

As a disclaimer - I do not steal from stores or anything like that, but I'll admit throughout college I was a bit of a klepto for bar paraphanelia (signs, cups, coasters etc) and I'm not trying to EXCUSE that or say it's OK to steal property, but...seriously, stealing the BJZ stamp was the most rebellious thing I did in high school.  I hope my mother realizes what a saint I was compared to some of my other friends.