I was sure that anyone within ten feet of me could hear my heart pounding. The aisle at the big Woolworth's five-and-dime store was empty, except for me. I was looking at the row of tiny, three-inch-tall cobalt blue bottles that were labeled in silver script, "Evening in Paris." Smelling its powdery seductive floral aroma in the tester, I was sure my mother would think it was divine. Mother's Day was the following Sunday, and I had no gift for her yet. A bottle cost $1.20 plus a penny tax—a fortune—and a dollar more than I had in my tiny change purse.
I picked up one of the small glass vials, turning it this way and that, shaking it gently to make sure it was full of liquid, and then clutching it so tightly that it began to feel warm. Its contents were hardly visible when I closed my fingers around it. My pulse quickened. The pocket of the apron my mother made me wear over my dress to keep it clean was roomy and deep. My heart raced as I dropped the small vial into it and walked out through the heavy glass door to the sidewalk.
High on a rush of Adrenalin, I let out a shout of pure exhilaration. I have since taken the occasional stapler home from work or pocketed a pen from the bank—each time reliving the shame from my childhood heist. More often, I point out to a cashier that I was undercharged on my purchase, or I run back to pay for an item that went unnoticed in the back corner of my shopping cart—each action a form of penance for my earlier misdeed.
Redemption: In a recent New York Times guest essay, the writer and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster argues that these small, everyday acts of transgression are more profound than we may think. They are, in fact, integral to our human-ness. "I find that it's when we dwell on our secret enjoyments that we learn the most about ourselves," writes Webster. "Transgressive acts, even small ones, can help us do just that. By creating an internal tension, they remind us that 'we are contradictory creatures, wondrously and terrifyingly so.'"
Now, seventy-two years later, I can blame this youthful act of perfidy for my enduring philosophy of life: there but for the grace of G-d go I.
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