May 18 2009
A.C. Moore Craft Wire Nose Pliers
It never fails when I walk into a store I always have my youngest or my two youngest children in tow. You get used to it as a parent that there are just some places you will go with children at your hip, or in this case - sitting in your shopping cart.
I love shopping the various craft department stores in our area. Besides writing, crafts are one of my favorite hobbies. A.C. Moore, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, we’ve got them all within a twenty minute drive from our home, and every week I take advantage of the 40% and 50% coupons they send both to my email box and snail mail.
Last week I had a 50% coupon for A.C. Moore, and with kids in tow went to see what new craft supplies I could add to the kids’ activity closet I keep for rainy days. When I walked out of the store, I got more than a bargained for, and dutifully took it back.
My oldest child is very much into sculptures and so the week before I bought clay for sculpting. This particular trip, I picked up a clay rolling machine, but after I paid for it and got to the car, I noticed a pair of wire nose plyers laying in the bottom of my cart.
I have no doubt my youngest pulled them off a shelf as we walked by and threw them in the cart. I hadn’t paid for them. I don’t think the sales clerk noticed them either. So, I debated, wrestled, with my innerself of right and wrong and ultimately set the right example for my kids. I wanted to just leave them in the cart and put the cart back in line with the others and forget about them, but I couldn’t. I knew if I did so, I’d have a guilty feeling for a very long time, especially if someone came along and took advantage of them in the cart as freebie outside the store.
I walked back into the store, laid the pliers on a scrap-booking display and walked out, my middle child wanted to know why I did that. I replied, “because we didn’t pay for them, they didn’t belong to us.”
Hopefully on that day, I passed on the valuable lesson to my children, and demonstrated to them honesty in my actions.
Today, have you found something that didn’t belong to you? What attempt did you make to pass it on to the rightful owner?
