>>8160103Transformers Armada was the big thing at the time. I'm sure everyone here knows in hindsight how dogshit that line was, but Minicons and industrial-strength plastics were hot. Recently stocked was Red Alert. Something about that Robocop-like design and shoulder canon on the cover said "I gotta have that." For a minute I actually weighed my options and considered it might've been too big to swipe, but that impulse took over again and I just couldn't fight it. It didn't help that my parents were pissed at me about something recent, which was getting into a couple of fights at school. So I knew they definitely wouldn't say yes if I had asked for it. Without deliberating it further I quickly tucked it away into my winter jacket and walked out. There weren't any cameras or a security scanner at the time, so all I had to do was make a quick beeline for the Sears next door and open it in their bathroom.
Ten minutes I came back with it proudly in my hands, even showing it off to the owners of the store, telling them that "my friend gave it to me." Yes, I was that stupid. What I didn't catch on until I was much older was how that passing line sounded. After Jason had dropped me off for the evening, he talked to my parents in private. They seemed slightly worried, but I hadn't picked up on it since being enamored with Red Alert. While I was fiddling with how it transformed, they were asking a lot of strange questions about who my friend was that gave me the toy. Didn't think that far ahead, so I just immediately said it was "Jerome from down the street". My mom called his mom and she denied even having been to that mall before. Dad was visibly worried and kept goading me into saying who it really was. Eventually it was just a "I don't know" and that didn't help deescalate anything. In a kid's mind all they want to do is not get caught doing what they did wrong. Anything else was secondary.
