I steal things.

I've met a lot of incredibly cool people online in the past year (more on this later - really. I mean it!), so I debated long and hard about the wisdom of posting this. [Some of these wonderful and amazing people have extended invitations to me to visit, and I really hope these invitations are not about to be rescinded. Love of a good (?) story is pretty much always going to win the day, though...wise or not. ;-/ ]

I recently traveled to the midwest for family reunions (who knows? There might be more on that later, too!). I went a couple of days early to spend some time with a dear friend from high school, and his wife and son. It was great to spend time just hanging out, playing cards, catching up, yada yada yada. As I said above, I've met a plethora of groovy people in the last year, but there's something simply fulfilling about spending time with someone who's known me intimately for over twenty years - and loves me anyway.

My buddy and his wife were getting ready for a garage sale that coming weekend, so there were many boxes of stuff about. I'd like to say I pitched in and helped them get organized, but I mostly just sat around and distracted them. () ;-)

For various reasons, I ended up alone at their house for a while that Friday morning. (My friend came back from work for the wife and child, as it was a little league day.) There was a box of trashy romance novels (a guilty pleasure of mine), and I'd meant to confirm with the wife that they were for the garage sale, but in their rush to head out for the game, I forgot to ask. I tried to reach my friend on his cell but he wasn't answering. I left a message, and started looking through the box. There were several authors/titles I already had in my collection at home, but there were a some new ones, and I was almost done with the book I'd brought with me.... I picked out several authors to take along, left a note ("Sure hope these were for the garage sale! ;-)" because, really, why else would they be there?) and a few bucks on the kitchen counter.

It was a couple hours later that my friend called me back. I explained what I'd done, and there was a moment of silence. He says, "Um, actually, my wife was going to send those to her grandmother, who's in the hospital."

Oops.

"Hi, my name is jeannie cool, and I steal things."

[FTR, though, I talked with him today, and all is well. I'm going to mail them when I finish reading them, so you needn't rescind those invitations.]