One time I tried to steal fake vampire blood from Medic

You know what I like best about the title of this post? The fact that I felt compelled to call it "fake" vampire blood. As if, you know, there's REAL vampire blood that you can buy online or something, but I found it important to clarify that what I tried to steal was the fake stuff.

Anyway, yeah, I don't know why I'm thinking about this right now, but one time I tried to steal a tube of FAKE vampire blood from Medic, which for those who aren't familiar is/was a chain of drug stores. Or pharmacies, if you prefer. Or chemists, if you're British. You get the idea.

My friend Mike Ostack and I walked into Medic one day, and I guess it must have been around Halloween because they had vampire blood there. Not an item you're likely to find on sale in, say, April.

I had no money with me because I must have been, I don't know, nine years old at the time? It was before Mike moved away to Georgia, so maybe he'll know. We were very young, in any case.

I saw that vampire blood and I wanted it, but I didn't have a cent to my name. So, in a moment of true genius, it occurred to me that I could just TAKE it. That way I could have it but not pay for it. Problem solved!

I was wearing a sweatshirt, and I believe the high-level expert thievery technique I opted to use was to take the vampire blood – which I think was in a cardboard package – and stuff it under my sweatshirt. And then I attempted to walk out of the store. Quickly. With this huge bulge in what before had been a relatively flat abdominal area.

Amazingly, this display of stealth did not fool the Medic cashier, who saw me as I approached the door and said (very sternly), "Young man! Come here! Come here right now!" Or some such thing. I couldn't believe she had foiled my plan.

With knees trembling and a bladder threatening to expel its contents (I was not a kid who got into trouble often...I wasn't sure how to handle this), I walked over to the cashier and produced the vampire blood from under my sweatshirt. She told me to wait there while she walked to the back of the store to get the manager.

That was bad enough. But things got exponentially worse when one of the customers who was waiting to check out – an older gentleman, as I recall – looked at me and said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I was mortified. I will never forget those words or how he said them.

At that moment, I pretty much panicked. There was no way I was waiting for the cashier to return with the store manager, so I made a run for it. I just dashed out the door and ran all the way to Drenik Drive and hid behind some bushes.

Now, you'll recall that I wasn't alone. Mike was with me. I hadn't clued in Mike on my escape plan, and I guess I just assumed that he would take off with me. But only when I jumped behind the bushes did I realize he wasn't there. And that my situation had probably just gone from bad to worse.

I waited a few minutes and then saw Mike coming down the street. I jumped out and asked him what happened. In a trembling voice, he told me he had to give the store manager my name and phone number, Which I totally get. I know he felt bad, but we were nine. What was Mike going to do? You're not smart enough at that age, in that situation, to come up with any sort of elaborate lie.

So that was it. My fate was sealed. I was pretty much dead. No doubt, by the time I got home, the Medic people would have called my mom to tell her what I had done. I honestly don't remember if I went straight home to get it over with or whether I stalled or what.

But I do remember eventually walking in through the back door and seeing my mom sitting at her sewing machine in the living room. And Mom lifting her head and looking at me for a moment. Oh man. That look. It wasn't so much anger as extreme disappointment. That's way, way worse than anger. That's the you-let-me-down-I-thought-you-knew-better face. Agony.

I immediately burst into tears. Mom scolded me for a few minutes. She didn't yell, just...scolded. It was terrible. And then I asked her not to tell my dad, and to my amazement, she said she wouldn't. As far as I know, she may never have told him. I could have hugged her on the spot. And I should have.

Anyway, there is no point to this story other than that I can tell you I never remember trying to steal anything again. The thought of standing there in Medic waiting for the store manager to come, and feeling ashamed just like that old man said, was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

And to this day, I've never actually had a tube of vampire blood. I should go out and BUY some, just for the satisfaction of knowing I finally got it the right way.