Mom Was a Klepto
Do you have a kleptomaniac mother? or grandmother?
When I opened my office practice, I was stunned by the fact that patients took stuff; magazines, toilet paper, once even ornaments from the Christmas tree in our waiting room.
Nancy, my secretary called one of the patients. “You took our magazines.” --- Oh, I thought you wanted us to take them. “No, could you please return them?” --- OK.
I wondered what their thinking was, that is until the day I noted my mother doing her thing.
There are many stories about our mother. From doing floor exercises before anyone else, to running to the bus stop, to eating her lunch while she shopped in the city, to winding golf balls at The U.S. Rubber Co.
But this is one of my favorites.
“They have plenty of money. They want you to take these things.” That is what she said when I told her not to take the jelly jars and sugar packets from the table in the restaurant.
Diane and I took my parents for a weekend in Boston some years ago, surprising them with tickets to see Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca in the waning years of their marvelous careers. My parents loved them from the days of Your Show of Shows, and they did not disappoint.
As a further surprise, we stayed at The Colonnade, an upscale luxury hotel near the theatre. My parents were thrilled, effusive with praise for the room.
We met the next morning where Mom, elegantly dressed (as usual) and ecstatic to be having breakfast in a hotel, had pancakes. “I love pancakes.” She also ordered a blueberry muffin for the road. “This place is wonderful. I’ll bet this costs a lot.”
Just as we were leaving the dining area, I noticed that she was loading her large handbag with sugar packets and small, unopened jars of jellies from the table.
“What are you doing, Mom?”
“These jellies are delicious and just the right size. I’ll take some home. And we always can use the sugar.”
“No. They belong to the hotel, and they are for the next guests.”
She chirped “They want you to take them. Besides, they have plenty of money.”
“Mom, that’s stealing.”
“Oh, get off.” It was a common refrain that Mom used to dismiss us. We left the dining room, my mother standing tall, the rest of us glancing to and fro. She struggled with her handbag but, undaunted, she moved along briskly.
I don’t think my mother was a compulsive stealer except for restaurant table things. “Mom, have you ever taken silverware? Or napkins?”
She looked at me and with a pregnant pause, incredulous, and replied, “Oh, get off. That’s stealing.”
I remember the day Diane took her to the mall where a new store was offering a gift certificate if you bought something over one hundred dollars. She bought a dress and, in a flash, asked for her gift certificate.
Diane said, “Your Mom came for the certificate. She’ll take the dress back tomorrow.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“It’s not her style.” Mom called the next day asking for a ride to the mall where, as predicted, she returned the dress.
“Mom, did you return the certificate?”
“Oh, no. They want you to have that.”
Kleptomania is not uncommon. There is a range, some compulsive, some impulsive. I would like to think that my Mom’s ‘lifting’ of things was somewhere in between. Nonetheless, “they have plenty of money” and “they want you to do that” had us perplexed.
There was no changing her mind.
“Oh, get off.”
Copyright 2025
My mother was embarrassed when she put prune juice in the grocery cart, so she had my father check out. While he was checking out, my mother would go to the newspaper section near the exit door, pick out the "National Enquirer," fold it under her arm, and walk out. Unknown to her, my father always paid for the newspaper at checkout. My mother didn't want anyone to know that she liked reading a trashy rag.
Reminds me of Yogi Berra! He said that the towels were so fluffy at the hotel that he had trouble closing his suitcase!!