Aaron Bruss

Section 9

2/2/07

                           Taking Candy

            Ever since I was a little boy my mom has taught me not to steal, but there are times in your life when you forget how wise your parents are.  Peer pressure and other influences sometimes cloud your judgment.  I fortunately learned at a young age how important it was to listen to your parents or there will be consequences.

            When I was six years old, my best friend’s name was Mike.  Mike lived across the street from me so even though my parents thought he was a bad influence; there wasn’t much that they could do.  Like normal boys we would play baseball, hockey and other games but Mike always seemed to get us in trouble.

            One hot summer day, Mike and I were riding our bikes on some bike trails through the woods in our neighborhood.  We got bored and realized it was getting close to lunchtime so we decided to head home.  On the way home we both noticed that the mailman had just gone by.  We pulled up to the end of our driveways and both stopped at our own mailboxes.  Almost simultaneously we discovered that the mailman had left a little sample candy bar.  “Let’s go get the rest of these candy bars from the rest of the mailboxes on this block,” exclaimed Mike.

            “I don’t really think that is a good idea,” I told Mike, “Isn’t that stealing anyways?”

            Mike yelled back, “How can it be stealing if all the candy bars were free?  Besides it’s the afternoon, all the parents are still at work.”

            So we both went to our house to eat lunch and he came back over to mine as soon as he was finished eating. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.  Reluctantly I stood up from kitchen table and followed him outside.  We jumped on our bikes and I followed him to his next-door neighbor’s driveway.  He reached in and grabbed the little candy bar.

            “Wow that wasn’t so bad,” I exclaimed.  So we each took a side of the block and went down the whole block taking the candy bars out of each mailbox.  When we reached the end of the block, we turned around and retreated back to Mike’s house to stash all of our candy in his shed.

            Realizing how easy it was to steal all the candy we both decided to go the next block over and take all of their candy bars too.  We made it about half way down the block until we realized that there was someone walking right behind us.  “Aaron and Michael hold it right there!” boomed the voice.  Our feet froze in place as we slowly turned around to see the tall, angry figure walking toward us.  It was Mike’s dad and we both immediately knew we were in trouble.  He grabbed both of us and dropped me off at my house.

            “So what makes you think its ok to steal, Aaron?” asked my dad.  By this time I was already crying too hard to make anything near a comprehendible answer.  “Alright then we are going to the store and you are going to buy a new candy bar for everyone that you stole from,” he decided.

            I had to buy two bags of mini candy bars but at age six that is just about all the money you have.  Then with my dad we walked door to door through my neighborhood and I had to give everyone a candy bar and apologize.  It was just about the most embarrassing thing of my young life.

            The whole experience made me realize that you shouldn’t just do something because someone else wants you to.  Everyone has his or her own morals and you shouldn’t ever forget right from wrong.