Tiny Plastic Eggs So Silly

Silly Putty

He and a friend have a habit (not the kind that are worn) that probably more than a few kids have these days. They go to the Lucky’s supermarket in L.A. and steal things. Well, actually, in their case and to be more specific, to focus on one thing, it was usually just one thing that they stole. For some reason they always took the thing that most fancied their soul.
What fascinated the two boys this time around is a new product called Silly Putty. Just push it on newsprint and it copies the print — they did not have the Net — they couldn’t download their homework yet.
It was to them amazing stuff. In these days kids were still amazed by toys that didn’t talk, you couldn’t feed, and that couldn’t be connected to the USB port. On each trip they would put a pack of Silly Putty under their shirt and make their way to the restroom where they would un-package the little plastic eggs that the stuff came marketed in and put said eggs into their pockets. They were foxes in a hen house; they were wild and free. It was not a C.I.A operation, but it provided some initial experience — some essential development — some essence of technique.
In later days it would seem ironic that these tiny plastic eggs might have played a role in the destruction of so many lives, but then again eggs can be important in the future.
The eggs kids play with today can cost ten thousand dollars, pay for college, and be used to make babies. They can be bought in the classified section. Oh, was it really … silly Putty.
All went well with the procurement of the silly Putty until one day when a store manager happened to notice Charls stuffing something flat with a bulge in the middle under his shirt.
The two boys are taken to a dungeon. The kind of place people worked. He referred to it, they remembered, as the back office, where they were severely reprimanded and glad that they weren’t placed on a rack and their souls stretched out to the point where they came out of their mouths like giant tongues or Iguanas. It was scary in there. There was fear, personified.
The store manager looked at Charls’s shoes’ untied laces. “Today it’s toys, tomorrow cars, look at your shoelaces.” His voice stern, his eyes serious, and his face very, very, grim, he picks up the phone and tells the two that he is calling the police. Charls never forgot what he said next. “You are not going to see your parents for a very long time”. That’s it, he’s on the phone. It’s over for them. Then he places the baton in its cradle.
A few minutes later he releases them, and as they walk, slowly and controlled at first, and then scurry from the back to the front of the store, Charls’s friend starts crying. Charls tells him to hurry up and get out of the store before the guy changes his mind. Scott was a pussy, Charls could handle interrogation.