Stealing at the paper office, second try.

I'll see if I can stay on track this time. Hopefully this stuff isn't as boring to you as it is to me.

The bus depot was pretty much done so I started concentrating on the paper office. As I stated earlier it was also a game of patience and balls. I'd discovered where the money was and how to get at it.

Opportunities were limited and chances of getting caught at anytime were probably around 50/50. That's what made it interesting. However if caught by another paperboy I could quite probably get out of it with a small lie. If caught by the manager I was going to be in trouble.

It was fairly easy after you knew how to do it tho. Jump over the counter, open the bottom door under the cash drawer. stick your hand up and over the broken drawer side, from underneath. Then pull out the cash bag, take what you needed and then put the bag back.

No trace of anyone doing it. The drawer was still locked and it's likely the manager thought he'd just miscounted the money.

I wasn't near as greedy here as I was at the bus depot and just took what I needed to pay my paper bill. Never more, never less.

After some time I told my bus depot friend about it. Took me some time to learn to keep my mouth shut about things I was doing. Lol, more people get caught for doing things due to their own mouth and need to show off than for any other reason. Just gotta have that recognition to build the ego.

However, ego isn't worth getting caught for. I eventually learned to do things by myself and to keep them to myself. There were a few exceptions to that but not many and still aren't many. Seems simple, you can run your mouth and go to jail or you can shut up and stay free.

Mostly crime is to much work and doesn't pay all that well. Seems to me I read somewhere that the average take what with planning, execution and all the rest was just slightly below the minimum wage if you figured it hourly.

Now to me that payoff isn't worth going to jail for. Never has been and never will be. Holding up some place for 20 bucks to a few hundred while using a weapon just isn't cost effective. IOW the amount of jail time you are going to do for what you get is all out of proportion to the money.

Whatever. Point is it's stupid to rob a convenience store, with a gun, for twenty bucks. Risk vs reward. For all the prison time you are going to do it's going to work out to a couple of bucks a year. Just not worth it.

I knew, as a kid, nothing much was going to happen to me if I did get caught. What? I coulda been sent to reform school? Didn't care and didn't fear it. Why would it matter? Reality is in reform school I'd have had a better life than I had at home.

I see a lot of people like that today. I help the ones I can with rides to put in job applications or job interviews. Others I talk to about life in general. What I don't do is take care of anyone who isn't interested in taking care of themselves.

My girl cousin is worse about taking care of people than I am. She will take them under her wing and flat out take care of them. I won't do that. I will teach them to take care of themselves but if they aren't putting in any effort I'm not going to tolerate it.

It's like the old saying, give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime. She will help anyone even if they aren't trying to help themselves. I won't. She'll take care of them forever, or at least til she gets pissed off about it. That can take years.

We both have the same problem. We both like to help people and help them have better lives. I read a term about us once. Pathological rescuer. It fits. I'm just not willing to help anyone who won't help themselves and she will.

Anyway, stealing from the paper office lasted for a long time. I was never suspected.