As a child, I used to have a bad habit of staying up way past my bedtime to read, which had the unfortunate consequence of making me cranky and awful the next day. But because I was eight, that was everyone else's problem. My problem was that I had this incredible book that I simply did not have enough time to read during the day.
My parents tried everything. They tried the gentle approach. They tried explaining the science of sleep. They tried begging. Eventually they resorted to threats.
"Reid," they said "if we find you reading at night one more time, we are going to take all of your light bulbs away."
Did this stop me? No. No it did not.
The next night, I was back on my bullshit. All of the other good little eight year olds were slumbering away in preparation for second grade the next day. I heard my mother's footsteps in the hallway. Hastily, I turned off my lamp and shoved my book under my pillow.
The door opened, and the face of my mother appeared, grim, disappointed. There were bags under her eyes.
"I wasn't reading," I said. But lo, the light bulb was warm.
At this point, my parents had to follow through on their threat. All of the light bulbs were confiscated from my room.
You might be mistaken that my problem would have shifted from Book-That-Must-Be-Finished to No-Light-By-Which-To-Read-Said-Book, but that was not actually the case. I solved that second problem by sneaking into my parent's bathroom to read in the middle of the night. What were they gonna do, take all of the light bulbs out of their own bathroom???
No, my problem was that I grew up in Michigan, which, due to having an artificial time zone, means that in the winter it is fucking dark in the morning. I did not like having to get dressed in the dark. This was unacceptable to me.
So I thought to myself "what can I take from them that will be just as inconvenient as the lack of light bulbs is to me?"
And so I stole all of their fucking belts.
One at a time, so they wouldn't notice. First, I went for the ones they wore on a daily basis. Then, I went for the backup belts, secreting them away in a box in my room. My parents came to me, asking if I had seen their belts.
"No," I lied, "I have not seen your belts."
I, if memory serves, maintained this con for a couple of weeks. My parents were greatly inconvenienced by not having anything to hold their pants up (and were also going a little crazy because I know it was in my pants when I took them off last night) and also by having a still sleep deprived eight year old who was struggling to get dressed in the dark and making it everyone else's problem.
Eventually, the light bulbs were returned to me, at which point I abandoned my parents' bathroom and went back to reading happily in my own bed. The belts were returned shortly thereafter.
