AskReaders: What illegal thing have you done for the right reasons?

11-15 Illegal things done for right reasons

11. The only album I ever pirated was Everything Goes Numb by Streetlight Manifesto because they specifically told people to pirate it because their record label is a huge jerk. Great album and band.

12. When I was five, I stole one of those small paper packets of tomato seeds while we were just getting our groceries. My mom’s birthday was the next day, and I felt like I should get her something–tomato seeds. I made it out the store and halfway home, without getting caught.

My mom found out when she realized I was walking funny. I was hiding the seeds under my armpit inside my jacket. I now realize that simply putting them in my pockets would have been much easier and I probably wouldn’t have gotten caught.

Mom made me bring them back and apologize to the cashier. She didn’t get a present from me that year.

13. I did the illegal thing and the lunch lady used to help.

I was in Seminole Middle way back when in Florida and we were really poor. Like, really poor. I used to steal lunch wraps and salad from the health bar during lunch in the cafeteria. The lunch lady knew. There was lunch A – C, all hosted at different times of the day.

She wouldn’t charge me until the third lunch, and even then it was next to nothing. I would have a backpack full of wraps and salads that I’d take home and share between my brother.

14 years to this date I have spent every Sunday talking to her at least two hours. She is old now and nobody really visits her. I tend to go see her from time to time, when the opportunity arises. I bring her Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas dinners. Sometimes I cook breakfast for her and I maintain her garden. I take her for walks (she’s in a wheelchair). I love her. When she passes away, I’d have lost a mother and a friend.

14. I don’t know if this is illegal but I went to the bank thinking that they were still open since the doors were all unlocked. All the lights were off and no one was there. So I called the cops. The cop told me to walk inside to see if someone was there. Nope. But someone left a pair of bank keys on a desk. So, with police consent, I trespassed. An hour later, after I had left and gone to buy lunch, I saw four cop cars stationed outside the bank. I’m hoping that no one got fired for the wrong reason.

15. Not sure how illegal this is. I worked at a furniture store in the electronic department. We had a promotion going on where you could get free stuff (really rare) or 10-25% off. All you had to do was scratch the silver stuff off of the scratch tickets we gave out.

You could see through the back if you held them up to the light. We checked every ticket for prizes and I found a free 800 dollar surround sound system. I brought the ticket home with the intent on keeping it and using it at another store. The guilt caught up with me that night so I brought it back in and kept it in my pocket.

We had so many well off people come in buying 2000 dollar TVs and 3000 dollar laundry pairs that I just couldn’t give it to them. A week later a single mother who was down on her luck (she was a friend of one of the co-workers) came in to buy her 10 year old son a 32” tv for Christmas, one of the cheap 200 dollar brands. I gave her the ticket even though it wasn’t my sale and said “I have a good feeling about this one” and traded her tickets.

Her son got one hell of a Christmas gift for his PlayStation set up.

16-20 Illegal things done for right reasons

16. I stole a dog. I went to a friend’s house one night and we were hanging out in his front yard. A super friendly dog came up to us. I asked my friend if he knew the dog and he told me the story. It belonged to his neighbors who were kind of scaring everyone else in the neighborhood. They would hit the dog in the streets, it clearly wasn’t fed enough, and my friend said when the neighbors would try to get him to come to them he would run away every time. I took him home and within a week you couldn’t see his ribs anymore and he was one of the best dogs I’ve ever had. 10/10 would dognap again.

17. I pirate my textbooks. Like hell I’m choosing between buying food for the week and paying for overprices textbooks.

18. It was December a good few years ago and I was working in retail. You could spot them a mile off, the grannies and granddads that had saved up their measly pension all year just to buy the grand-kids those fancy sneakers or jeans. They would come to the till knowing they had just exactly enough to cover the cost, the look of surprise on their faces when I informed them that that very item was reduced by 40% was one that would have warmed the coldest of hearts. I used my staff discount. I never used it for myself. I did the same for people that were clearly not very well off. I’ve been in financial diffs myself (still not totally out of the woods yet but definitely on the up) and I know how much of a difference even a few pence can make.

19. Not illegal but it was something I wasn’t supposed to do.

Baghdad in 2006. We were on an over watch for a cordon and knock. Heading up a 6 story building to the roof we passed a crying woman in her 20’s. I asked her what was wrong and in perfect English she said that Iraqi and American soldiers had kicked her door in and she was all alone and scared without a door. We continued up to the roof and setup the over watch.

I was first on rest so I laid down. As I was laying there I started to feel really guilty. I made up my mind, popped up and told the sniper section leader I was going down a few floors to fix her door. He gave me a dirty look and said something along the lines of that being a stupid decision as we had no security except on the roof. I reiterated that I would be fine and he reluctantly said I could go.

As I started heading down the stairs I became aware of how vulnerable I was. Once I got to her apartment she greeted me with a smile and I told her why I was there. By this point I was getting kind of nervous at my decision to leave the roof in the hostile area. She could see me looking around and took my hand and looked me in the eyes and said “Dont worry soldier you are safe here”.

I ended up fixing her door and we talked about the war and our lives. I apologized to her that we had come in and wrecked her home, knowing full well I really wanted to apologize for being in her country in the first place. When I left she smiled thanked me and told me to stay safe. It was the one moment of humanity that I experienced in the entire deployment and I wonder if she’s still alive.

20. When I was in the volunteer fire department, I was trying to access the front door of a structure fire to put a knock on it with the hose line. A deputy from the sheriff’s office was standing on the front stoop blocking the door telling us it was too dangerous to go in, so I pushed him off the stoop and went in to put the fire out. We saved 2/3 of the house that day. I got called out to see the sheriff and county fire chief arguing about arresting me for assaulting a deputy, but the CFC and my chief were reminding the sheriff that it was a FIRE scene, not a law enforcement scene, and if I was arrested, everyone would walk out of their stations and let the Sheriff’s department handle all fire and EMS for the county, since they know more about it.