(July 22nd 2020)
So this happened two years ago during the long Republic Day weekend when the choir girls had decided to meet up in Madras. We were lunching in Pumpkin Tales on Republic day and Jen and Teenu who used to sit together in class were discussing their school days and how they were always upto no good… they were reminiscing about school and all the mischief they did. So anyway, we ate our food, sang a little birthday ditty for Jen (it was her birthday week) and then we went to a mall to hang out. So while we were trying on clothes, Jen takes a stole and she’s admiring it and since we were just talking about the shenanigans they did in school, I said why don’t you girls flick it. I usually joke like this, and it usually ends in more banter and boisterous laughter. This time, a naughty spark went off in Teen’s eyes and she was like yeah, let’s do it. After that there was no backing down, everybody got into it, like a top level secret mission. We checked if there were cameras around, then snipped the magnetic tag that was hanging on it, the stole was quickly stuffed into one of our bags and we just walked around the store casually and then decided to leave. So there we are walking confidently and we reach the exit and just as we’re walking out, beepers start going off. We all froze, and I was like, Oh My God, what did we do!!! But at the same time, I distinctly remember my mind telling me to think like Sherlock, so I’m thinking, we removed the tag from the stole, then there has to be another tag that’s making the sound. Then I realised we had the baggage tag, we had deposited some bags at the entrance and they give you a magnetic number tag for that. So I fish that out of my bag and show it to the security guy, we collect our bags and leave heaving huge sighs of relief. It was an adventure alright, we could feel our blood pumping like crazy and that adrenaline rush when the beepers went off was insane … you should have seen us. We were like never ever again are we attempting such a thing… we probably won’t survive it.
After this little adventure, we were feeling kinda guilty that we stole something and we decided to donate that amount in church. We go home and I tell Tonio what we did, he was like how dumb can you girls get. Go return it tomorrow, otherwise they’ll circulate the CCTV footage of you girls shoplifting. After this, we became paranoid and the night was spent checking social media and hoping we weren’t in any grubby video. So anyway, next day we decided to go back to the shop and buy the stole to stop the nagging guilt eating at us. This time the whole bunch did not walk in, me and Teens waited outside fervently saying the Our Father while Nam and Jen went inside, walked around a bit and then took the stole to the counter to buy it. They acted like they picked up the stole from the stole section and then went to bill it, no one suspected a thing. That work done, we could then breathe easy and now whenever Jen wears the stole of bravery, we always smile in remembrance of that nerve-wracking beepers going off.
Here’s a video of our time in Chennai… we were all in the choir together and this song brings back so many memories.
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