The joy of theft

Shu Qi, chillin on our balcony

I've always enjoyed a spot of petty theft. Never really felt that guilty about it. As long as I was stealing stuff from big businesses (famous fast-food outlets, supermarket chains, Australian theme pubs) it's always felt like a victimless crime. Whether it be pint glasses from the pub or biscuits from Tesco, I often looked upon my thieving as a pathetic form of anti-capitalist resistance.

As a teenager, I spent so much of my wages in a particular big-name record shop that the odd stolen CD always seemed fair game. I looked upon it as my own personal customer loyalty scheme. After all, they drew first blood with their hip-hop CD pricing structure (£17.99 for GZA's “Liquid Swords”, for goodness sake!).

As I've grown older, my life of crime has tailed off somewhat. Not through a new-found conscience, my amorality remains strong, but just through a lack of time and opportunity. So it has been something of a trip down memory lane to meet my girlfriend Jen – a certified kleptomaniac. It's easy to forget the joys of a good bit of petty theft, and I'm currently re-discovering the adrenaline rush and sheer hilarity of it all.

In the past few weeks we've liberated: a stylish plant and its neo-modern pot, two shiny tumblers from a large bar popular with expats and – the piece de resistance – a life size cardboard cut-out of Taiwanese actress Shu Qi (seen hanging out on our balcony, above). It's been riotous fun, but I've come to realise that there are drawbacks.

As I sit here writing this – having just been startled for the millionth time by an effigy of the pretty Asian woman from The Transporter – it dawns on me that sometimes, just sometimes, I steal stuff without following my own code of honour.

Shu Qi, for example, was sat outside a small off-license. A few years ago, I stole a bushel of plastic fruit and vegetables from a little kebab shop that subsequently went bust (I take no responsibility for their bad financial management). A good proportion of my UK tupperware collection came from the items deposited in my old office kitchen.

These are not victimless crimes. Somewhere, a Taiwanese man mourns the loss of an attractive, two-dimensional woman. A Turkish couple still frantically root through the loft on Sundays, pining for plastic tributes to vegetarianism. And scores of middle-aged ladies scratch their heads in confusion when looking for something suitable to store the leftovers from “that nice casserole”.

So I write this, not to stress that theft is bad, but to emphasise that stealing without an excuse is bad. Whenever you steal stuff, make sure you can somehow justify it to yourself.