Stories shared around the dinner table-
Jason- When I was a little boy my mom and my sisters and I would visit my Grandma Miller's house a lot. We loved to go there when my dad, who was a firefighter, had to stay at the station overnight. Then me and my mom and my sisters would stay at Grandma's house and have a sleepover with her. It was always fun. My grandma sold Avon makeup (lots of grandmas did back then!) and she always had a bunch of makeup in one of her bedrooms on the bed. They were orders for people that had bought makeup that she needed to deliver to them, and me and my sisters always liked to look at the different kinds of make up and lotions and stuff there was. The chapstick was my favorite, and one day there was a Tootsie Roll flavored chapstick on the bed. We knew that we weren't supposed to touch or play with the stuff on the bed, but I just picked it up and smelled it really quick, then I put it back down.
Then I picked it up again and smelled it again, and decided I would like to keep the chapstick. I asked my grandma if I could keep it and she said, "No, that belongs to someone else. You need to put it back on the bed". But I really wanted the chapstick- it smelled like candy! So I kept it in my hand and when it was time to leave I stuck it in my pocket and we went home.
And I didn't get caught!
Until the next day when my grandma called and told my mom that the chapstick was missing from the order. My mom asked me if I had taken it and I said, "Nope!"
And a few hours later she asked again and I said, "Nope!"
And then she sat me down and said, "That chapstick belongs to someone else. I know that you were playing with it and I know that Grandma can't find it. You were just baptized and when you were baptized you promised Heavenly Father that you would be honest and keep the commandments. It's important that you tell the truth and be honest now that you have been baptized."
And then I realized that I had been lying, and that I didn't feel good about having the chapstick anymore, so I went and got it and gave it back to my mom.
Melanie- When I was a little girl we lived in Alabama. There was a drugstore nearby called Boozers drugstore that sometimes my big sister and my big brother and I would ride our bikes to so we could get some penny candy. I don't remember if my mom went with us, she was probably home with the baby (Uncle Bubba (whose name is really Jared)). My favorite thing to get at Boozers was a Sugar Daddy, which is a huge hard caramel rip-your-teeth-out treat on a stick. I also loved to get Tootsie Rolls, and one time I didn't have enough to buy both, so I decided to put a few Tootsie Rolls in my pocket and just pay for my Sugar Daddy. That wasn't such a good idea because I pulled one out of my pocket and starting eating it as soon as we got back on our bikes.
My brother knew I had only paid for the Sugar Daddy, and he said, "What are you eating? Where did you get that?" and right away I knew I was caught. I didn't have any more money, so I had to go home and tell my mom that I had taken some candy without paying for it, and she marched me back to the store with some money and stood with me while I explained what I had done and gave the cashier the money. It was so scary that I never stole anything ever again (even when I was older and realized how easy it could be to just slip something in my purse). The yucky feeling that came with stealing was not worth it.
When I was a little bit older we lived in Rhode Island and my mom sent me on an errand to the store, which must have been just across a street or two from our house. I was nine years old and that was old enough to go to the store by myself with my best friend Jennifer Williams. My mom gave me a $5 bill and told us to go straight to the grocery store to buy one block of cream cheese and then come right back home.
Well, when we got to the grocery store we realized that a block of cream cheese only cost $1, and that we had $4 leftover. So we decided to buy some cupcakes! Or maybe some pudding, but I don't know how we would have eaten that without spoons. So we'll say it was cupcakes and that they were delicious!
And after that we realized that we still had $3 leftover! Either I forgot about going straight home or I didn't realize my mom wanted her change, but next to the grocery store was an arcade place that had my favorite arcade game- ski ball! And with $3 we could play quite a few rounds!
So a little while later, once we were out of money and maybe realizing that we had been gone for a bit too long, we hurried home and gave my mom the block of cream cheese and no change. I tried to tell her that it had cost the whole $5, but the truth came out pretty quickly.
My mom said that she had trusted me to do a job for her, and that she had been counting on me to do that job well. I felt really bad about what we had done, and after that I tried harder to do the things that people asked me to do to the best of my ability.
