God, Clean Up in Aisle 3

The fluorescent lights overhead shone extremely bright and hot, causing a sheen of sweat to form on my forehead and upper lip. As I stood in the shaving cream aisle of Pathmark, I could clearly hear Lisa Dini’s voice. “Are you chicken?”

I wasn’t chicken. I just knew right from wrong. And this was definitely wrong. Stealing was wrong. It’s in the 10 commandments we learn about in religious school.

But I’ve always had this need to fit in and be accepted. This felt like an initiation I had to pass in order to be one of the gang. A gang I desperately wanted to be a member of. As a slightly overweight, shy middle schooler, hanging out with the cool kids would be a huge boost to my ego. I moved to this school and neighborhood in fourth grade, after friendships and clicks had already formed. I was liked well enough. The funny, fat kid. But my phone hardly rang on a Friday afternoon with someone asking me to hang out at the mall. Now, I had a chance to change that. I could already hear the cheers when I exited the supermarket and triumphantly pulled the shaving cream out of my pocket.

Of course, that annoying voice in my head wouldn’t shut up.

“You know this isn’t right Michelle. What would your parents think right now?”

I pretty much knew exactly what my parents would say right now. And it wasn’t helping my decision-making process at all. I’ve always known where my parents stood on the right and wrong scale.

I was first introduced to the concept of God at three years old. My mother still tells the story of the apple, as she dubbed it, every time company is over and it can be slipped into the conversation.

It was just my mother and me home that afternoon waiting for my sister to get home from school. My mother was setting up for company that evening and had placed a bowl of fruit on the coffee table in the living room where I was watching Joya’s Fun School on our local PBS station, WPIX. Sitting on top of the pile of fruit was a shiny red apple.

As she turned to leave the room she said, “Michelle, don’t eat the apple.”

As I was three years old and really don’t remember this clearly, I can’t say with certainty what happened next. But the story goes that when my mother returned to the room a little while later, there was a bite mark in the nice shiny red apple sitting on top of the fruit bowl. My mother didn’t yell or scream or curse. She calmly sat me down on the sofa and tried to get me to fess up. Along the way, she gave me my first crash course in religion.

“Michelle, who ate the apple?”

“Not me mommy.”

“You and I are the only ones in the house and I was in the other room. Michelle, who ate the apple?”

“Not me mommy.”

“Michelle, God is all around us. He’s always watching, and he sees everything we do. I’m going to ask you one more time. Who ate the apple?”

Allegedly, I looked my mother right in the eye and responded, “God did, mommy.”

This is the part my mother always laughs at when she’s telling the story. Supposedly, she laughed when it actually happened too. Then she put me over her lap and smacked my bottom for lying.

Not only was I a liar, I was now contemplating adding thief to my resume. Glancing around the aisle, checking both to the right and left. I then looked up. I’m not sure why. Was I expecting to see someone hanging from the ceiling ready to swoop in and grab me? Maybe I was looking for God. All I did see were those annoying fluorescent bulbs.

There was nobody around. I slowly wiped my sweaty hands on my coat and reached for the can. I quickly placed it in my coat pocket and turned down the aisle to leave the store. As I reached the end of the aisle, my heart rate started to return to a normal level. I was actually going to get away with it! Just a few more feet to go till I was outside and free!

Seconds from reaching the exit doors, a hand touched my shoulder, sending me flying into the air. Or so it felt.

I turned to see a security guard with a frown on his face. I would come to find out later that night that the blinding fluorescent blubs were used as a decoy so people couldn’t see the clear glass windows of the security office two floors above the aisles. Giving the security guards a birds-eye view of the store and its shoppers.

The rest of the night consisted of sitting in the security guard office with the wall of windows while my parents were tracked down. I knew my parents were out to dinner with the Millers for my mom’s birthday, so I had no idea how long I would have to sit there being scared straight into thinking I was going to jail. When they did show up, the security guard who had caught me told them I would have a juvenile record for one year. If I didn’t do anything illegal in that year, my record would be wiped clean.

The drive home was deathly quiet. The only words were spoken by my dad after we pulled into the driveway telling me to go straight to my room. We would talk about this tomorrow.

I knew even without a discussion I would be grounded for a certain length of time with some privileges revoked. This was not my first experience on the punishment train.

Trying to sleep, my mind kept going back to the story of the apple. As I have gotten older, I’ve expressed differing opinions on this story. At first it was defiance. My mother apparently wasn’t in the room with me. She said it was just me and God. How did she know it was me who ate the apple? Maybe God did do it. Maybe he wanted a bite of the shiny red apple so badly so as to go against my mother’s wishes, which he must have heard since he was there when she said it. Kid logic.

Now, at 13, and an adult according to the Jewish religion that I practiced, I understood that God wasn’t really there in the room with me. Kind of like when the Catholic kids finally realize Santa Clause doesn’t really exist. I instinctively assumed that if I blamed God for what I did, I could escape punishment. Faulty logic. And it wasn’t going to work this time. I was just going to have to grin and bear it. Hopefully my parents would feel pity on me if I played the peer pressure card. They were teenagers once. They had to relate.

Also keeping me up was the other unknown I had to face. What kind of reception would I get at school on Monday from Lisa and the other kids? Ultimately, I had failed. On the other hand, I now had a criminal record. That had to give me street cred, which should make me cooler. Right?

In the morning light my parents weren’t feeling any more generous, despite my pleas for leniency. I would be going to school and coming right home after for one month. Okay, not really a hardship. It was when I got home that things would be different. No TV and no phone. At least I would still have books. The ultimate friend to outcasts since the invention of the printing press.  

Why couldn’t I have just seen God in aisle 3 last night?

Thanks God. Thanks a lot.