It wasn’t the first time I stole candy. Nor was it the last. But it’s the memory I return to again and again.

They were chocolate malted milk balls, in a clear plastic bag. They were being stored, with other candy and food, in one of several large yellow tin cans. I think the tins had been used for some sort of food-service product; my dad probably scavenged them for his storeroom, along with the old grocery store shelves.

The “storeroom” is a room upstairs in our old farm house. You have to walk through my parents’ bedroom to get to it. It holds anything that that we shouldn’t be getting into and more; locked trunks that held guns and who knows what else; shelves with old army electronic manuals and other things from a life before us.

Along one whole wall are the wire shelves; under and in front of the shelves are the cans. The shelves are laden with canned foods, jars of preserves (both home-made and store-bought), and all manner of dry goods. The cans hold anything that isn’t impervious to mice: flour, bags of rice and beans, marshmallows….and candy. My dad grew up during the depression, and he made sure that his family would never be left without enough to eat. He buys on-sale and stocks up, even to this day.

I was sent upstairs frequently to get ingredients for mom as she cooked, so I knew where all the food was. I’d known about the malted milk balls for some time. One day, I decided to snitch…just a couple. I tore a tiny hole in the bottom of the bag and squeezed the candies through it, and stuffed them into my mouth. I’d hardly gotten the can closed before I was opening it for more. Just a couple more. I tucked the bag down into the bottom of the can, under the other items.

This went on for a day or two as the bag, to my horror, became more than half empty. I was out of control and I couldn’t stop. I was a criminal and I was going to be caught. Weeks later, when the evidence surfaced into my dad’s attention, I was in fact caught. Not only did I feel ashamed of my behavior, but my methods were ridiculed. My attempts at misdirection by opening the bag from the bottom and not finishing the whole bag were obvious. Did I really think he would be so stupid as to believe that a mouse had opened the can and gotten into the bag? Or that the bag was not full to begin with?

All too often today I find myself back in that store room, an insatiable mouse whose food is always stolen, because when you have a lifetime of eating too much, ALL of your food is stolen. “I really shouldn’t…”

And the voice in my head mocks me as I put on my jeans or look in the mirror. “Did you really think I would be so stupid as to not notice?”