As usual in my world of horrors, I witnessed a very interesting occurrence happen at a friend’s house.
While we were in the middle of discussing generalities, my friend’s friend walked into the house as if it were their own, walked straight into the kitchen, made themselves a cuppa before sitting down to join us.
A few minutes later, that same friend stood up and started going through my friends’ CD collection, putting aside ones that they wanted, and took them on their way out.
Throughout this whole episode, they never once asked to borrow the CDs, neither did they say when or if ever they were returning them.
What kind of insanity is that? While this behaviour might seem acceptable, I can imagine what my friends reaction would have been, had their friend walked in and taken keys to their car and driven off.
They would have run after that car as fast as speedy Gonzales screaming “thief” at the top of their lungs.
I started to think about whether we as a people have any boundaries anymore. When is it ever okay to take people’s property or possessions without even being courteous enough to ask to borrow it or at least offer to buy it off them.
To an extent, this culture has infiltrated our society such that friends are even taking over each other partners (wives, husbands, girlfriends or boyfriends).
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As they say, watch your enemies closely, but watch your friends even more closely. That same friend that you poured your heart out to, will have no qualms wiki-leaking that information to your partner in order to win their hearts.
I wonder if we were to take a survey today, how many items in our possession are actually ours, how many are “borrowed” indefinitely, how many items did we take or as it were steal?
How many times have we heard of people in the same family locking their bedroom doors, to bar a sibling from taking their clothes, colognes, DVDs and so forth.
Having worked in the tourism industry for some time, I was always fascinated by the number of guests that helped themselves to the hotels’ cutlery, amenities (toilet rolls), and even in one instance towels.
Picture this if you will, a guest is checking out of the hotel, and is asked to pay an extra amount for their phone bill, so they proceed to open their suitcase to retrieve their wallet, and lo and behold, right before my very eyes, are the hotels’ nicely embroidered towels packed ever so neatly in the bag!
Taking is stealing, no matter how expensive, big or small the item is.
When we were growing up, we were taught to never ever take anything that wasn’t ours. We were taught to work for our own things and to develop a sense of pride in amassing and achieving great things.
It was taboo in our household to come home holding anything that you couldn’t explain where it came from, under what circumstances and why.
If we borrowed a book from the library, we had to take it back in the condition we got it, or pay the fine ourselves, from our pocket money.
Your comments are most welcome.
