theft

an ex's momentarily unattended wallet was pilfered right in front of her at the airport check-in counter, five years back i had to fill in a column in a police report for a shoplifting student, more recently a hobby hangout had an audacious hit of missing product, to top it all i know a purported klepto.

it's hardly about need and lack of course, not at this day and age. so i've often tried to imagine the impulse that drives the desire to take what isn't one's own (and here i speculate only about the opportunistic, not the premeditated): i figure an overwhelming craving, a lust or coveteousness of some sort, just like anyone would regularly have for, say, food when aromas trigger, or window shopping for a shopaholic, but either without the necessary moral restraint or the blocking to override such conscience, or sometimes the intentional ignoring of such control, and finally a possibly addictive adrenaline rush not found even in the most stimulating of normal activities and it's resultant endorphin release, like a drug.

it's a potent cocktail.