I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about this.
At 14, I was heading into high school and had abandoned all hope of ever being cool. In fact, I’d gone to Space Camp the previous spring and discovered that it was okay to be a geeky nerd, so by golly, that’s what I was going to be! I had gone to nerd camp a few summers before, and had a blast (and even made my first disastrous foray into online chatting), but had quickly returned to my shell of “trying hard not to be a nerd” at school. After Space Camp, however, I realized that everybody knew I was a nerd, and it was just too hard to hide. It’s not like trying to be cool was working, and thanks to the bullies and bitches, my life before high school honestly could not get any worse (Kaitrin Stumpf, I am looking at you).
So, I took my money down to Toys R Us, but didn’t find much I was into. I was 14, and getting to be grown up enough that Barbies were starting to lose their edge, and I had long since given my entire 22-pony collection of My Little Ponies to a younger friend of mine (which meant I could still play with them at her house!) Breyer horses were still cool enough, but I already had the one I wanted (the unicorn), so I just kind of wandered around till my mom could come pick me up at the appointed time.
And then I saw the display of D&D books. They were on a magazine rack on the floor– eye level with absolutely no one who might buy them, thank goodness I was short. I had to crouch down to look through them, and I honestly didn’t know what I was looking for or at. I didn’t know the difference between AD&D and Basic. I didn’t know the difference between first and second editions– but I was mesmerized by the players handbook, the art, the “here’s how to make a character” of it (later, the DMG would similarly enchant me with its “how to make a world” aspect).
This happened shortly before AD&D 2nd ed came out, and I hadn’t played Dungeons and Dragons since my parents’ divorce. Before that, D&D was what we did when camping in the rain– Dad would pull out the books and my sister, my brothers, and I would play. I was not a very good D&D player at the time– I really needed immortality to survive any game, and being the youngest, I would throw a fit if my character died. To be fair: I was so young I could barely read, and when’s the last time you played any game of make-believe with a 5 year old where they could die?!?
But I digress. The books drew me in. I knew this was something I could get into. Make-believe was still the only game I could consistently be drawn into with my best friend on slumber parties, though we had more and more been spending our slumber party time writing short stories together. I was shifting from nerdy into gamer, and I embraced it. Whether I met similarly-inclined people in high school or not was irrelevant– I’d play solo if I had to (making up stories by myself was already my favorite way to spend time).
I took my book and 1 other thing (I can’t remember what it was, but it was about $20) to the checkout and paid for them. The amount seemed low, but I walked out with my stuff and sat outside. I kept thinking about it– I knew it was too low. I took out the receipt. The $22 AD&D Players Handbook I’d just bought? They’d rung it up as $1.98. I went back inside and up to the customer service desk to pay the difference. I don’t even know if I waffled about doing it. I knew it wouldn’t be right to keep the book having only paid $2 for it.
My mom walked in while I was standing there, waiting to pay, and asked me what I was doing. I told her. She said “Oh, I’m so proud of you!” I was embarrassed. I wasn’t doing this to make her proud, and in fact, I would be just as happy if she’d never known. I couldn’t articulate why I felt that way at all– all I knew was that, thinking about paying $2 for this book of magic and mystery left a cold knot in the pit of my stomach. It was exactly the same feeling I had when I’d stolen a piece of candy when I was 6 years old (and got caught– I always got caught).
I said “Umm…. could we just not talk about it?”
“Oh… Okay.” She never mentioned it again.
Now, with 20 years gone by, and a lot of wonderful gaming in between, I know what it was that made me go back and return the book. I know where the knot in my stomach came from. It came from looking at the book and thinking “you didn’t get this legitimately. This is a cheat.” That cold pit is my conscience, if I’m simplistic about things. It’s the part of me that knows the difference between fair and unfair, between right and wrong.
It’s the thing that keeps me from enjoying anything acquired through deception. If I had kept the book without paying the full price, I would have felt terrible. Every time I took out my gaming books, I would have felt like a thief, a cheat, a loser. I would know that, someday, everyone would find out what I was really like, the lie would be revealed, I would be exposed. This is my deepest fear, incidentally, and the only defense I’ve been able to construct is to be on the outside who I think I am on the inside. But it’s often hard work, and sometimes, like in this incident, I use my exterior actions to shape who I am internally. I am not always a good person inside– I can be petty, mean, gossipy, and cruel, just as much as anyone else. But if I reign myself in from acting those ways, I train myself not to be as petty, mean, or cruel.
See, after correcting the price and paying full price for the book, whenever I took out my gaming books, I felt like a freakin’ paladin. I was right, and righteous. I was on the moral high ground. I didn’t require others to live by my code of honor (and in fact, I was fast and loose about that code in every other possible way, but… hey, adolescence), but I was definitely, in that moment, an honest person. When I put my hands on my game books, I felt honorable. If you’re about to embark on an adventure where everyone plays by the rules solely because they all agree to, and you’re going to invent a story where everyone gets to be heroes, then you should start out on the right foot, and not with a cold pit of internal disgust at yourself for how you acquired the very rules by which you want to play.
The best analogy I can make is religious, so bear with me and divorce it from from the religious connection, please. Now, imaging stealing the Ten Commandments and then being proud of your ownership of them and trying to use them to genuinely be a good person. It can’t be done– the act and the artifact are too much at odds.
The sad part is, in retrospect, I realize I might have gotten a well-meaning (but dishonest) clerk fired. I look at it from the other side of the checkout stand and imagine some closet nerd checkout clerk at Toys R Us who sells a D&D book and deliberately misses the 2 on the button. Of course, it’s impossible that they would have missed that button– they had barcode scanners even then– so the clerk changed the price to take $20 off the book. They thought they were doing something really nice, a terrific gift for a budding nerd. Instead, they might have gotten fired for doing so at the expense of the company’s profits. I suppose the lesson they learned that day is that nerdy children will tattle.
What’s your moment of growth through honesty or dishonesty? When did you realize that, without someone else guiding you, being honest is the best way to do things?
I sort of doubt you need to worry about getting someone fired over a $20 till discrepancy. And I don’t want to tarnish your childhood memory, but it seems unlikely that the dude behind the counter wanted to discount your book $20. Much more likely he just pressed the wrong button somewhere, or that the barcode scanner read it wrong or something.
Also, it seems extremely telling that you are the type of person who feels affiliation with paladins rather than… the thief, for example. Ironically, there are a lot of people whose sole enjoyment out of D&D (and games like it) is playing a thief or chaotic character class. A feeling/experience they can’t get from reality. I generally fall somewhere in between. I almost always created neutral characters.