The Careless Days
It was three o’clock in the morning when the phone rang. I was in no state to get up, so my roommate answered it. Her groggy voice traveled across the apartment enough for me to get a gist of what she was hearing. I knew that our days as students were finally up and we had indeed gotten caught.
It started a couple years ago when we were high school juniors and we first met on the greyhound traveling to Ohio. I was sent by my parents; she was running away. We talked a bit and realized that we had a lot in common. For one, we both wanted to go to Harvard University and when by some miracle we both achieved our goal, it took almost no effort to seize the ticket.
My parents were less than thrilled that I had joined such a society of rich kids learning law. They sent me to three jobs in order to pay for it, but I knew no matter how hard I worked to stay above water, I could never get the money to go to Harvard. A little luck came to me when my great grandmother died, leaving me most of her money. Since it was mine, I saved it for college, but since it was less than a year away, the fundraising was tough.
During the summer I had even more part-time jobs and I did small things like car washes and bake sales to raise just a little more cash. Thankfully, my parent’s weren’t using the cash I earned like I thought they might and I slowly had about two thousand dollars. Contacting the girl on the train, Michelle, I found out she didn’t have that much either. We decided that the going was too slow for this to go anywhere. I’d have to quit some of my jobs when school started and that would cut down on money making considerably. We decided it was time to steal.
I went to the library one afternoon and researched locking picking and various security devices. When I came home after dinner to cold chili, I decided to start that night at a small joint: my house. I knew all of the security that there was and it would give me the chance to practice going past people once I was in. My parents did a good job of hiding their cash from me so I thought it was an extra bonus that I’d have to find it.
As sure as my parents were asleep, I snuck into their bedroom, found the money stashed in a safe, and proceeded, with my book on unlocking safes, to find the code. It took me four hours, but I finally found about six hundred dollars worth of cash alone. I thought selling jewelry would be a little obvious, so I took all of the money. It wasn’t much in the long run, but it was good practice.
My parents were beside themselves when they found the money missing, but I said I was asleep and didn’t hear anything. The money stayed under my bed until I could take it out and put it in the bank. Michelle didn’t have the same luck as me, but she managed the next time she tried. I went on to harder buildings: past laser beams, picking locks, burglar alarms. I got very good at just smashing devices instead of leaving them intact. I was almost caught once, about two days before the phone call, and that was a burglar alarm that went off silently, before I noticed it. The police searched the place, but luckily, the ceiling was removable. No one ever checks up.
By this point, Michelle and I were both together doing our crimes the same night in order to pay back the financial aid. If anyone asked, we got the money from our parents. People stopped asking. We got careless. We got the phone call at three o’clock in the morning from a friend saying that the police were on our way. We packed our bags as quickly as we could. We used the fire escape out the back door and we ran.
