Giving Celebrity Shoplifters a Bad Name

Monday, November 11, 2002
It's the way the stupid world works that the many are always being made to pay for the fuck-ups of the few. Like back when that dildo Jesus ate the apple and created Original Sin, that Angelina Jolie movie where she looks all fat. Thanks, Jesus. Then some dumb kid freaks out and tries to climb up inside a running lawnmower, and all of a sudden only the Indians get to eat peyote anymore. Like they never freak out and set the teepee on fire sometimes. Finally, to put the icing on the ice cream, some primadonna of a lab rabbit gets an eye blister so all of the rest of us miss out on a cute new mascara.

Sometimes this rule works in our favor, like when you get a college scholarship because your great step-grandma once slept with some Navajo guy, but usually it doesn't.

Case in point. Winona Ryder, of Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon fame, gets the bright idea to prop up her saggy-titted acting career by getting caught half-assedly shoplifting some cheap junk out in Beverly Hills. She thinks she's all clever, hiding it in her sacks from Saks, then all of a sudden all of us innocent celebrity shoplifters are taking the heat. What a crock. I didn't spend three weeks painstakingly smuggling a complete set of Martha Stewart Living silverware out of a K-mart piece by piece in my mouth to be compared to that talentless hack. Talentless at shoplifting, anyway, she may be a great film actress for all I know. But I wouldn't know, because I don't watch foreign films. Too much talking.

By the way, her "I was rehearsing for a role" excuse is cute, but you can refer to the court transcripts of the trial for my underage hit-and-run accident back in '88 if you want to see how long it takes a jury to get tired of that line. It's something like fifteen minutes, tops. I was ten; I don't know what her excuse is.

This all reminds me of back when celebrity drug use got a bad name just because Robert Downey Jr. proved to be a lightweight who couldn't hold his heroin. Like that surprised anyone. Hello? Did anyone see Less Than Zero? That movie was supposed to be about a baseball player, only they had to re-write it on the fly since Downey constantly looked like he'd just woke up dead.

While we're on the subject, I thought I'd throw in some free shoplifting tips in case you don't fancy ending up on CourtTV looking like the lost member of the Addams Family. Just don't cheap out on me and say I never did anything for you when I call up and need a place to crash for a few months, okay? First off, it's probably best to avoid shoplifting really big stuff, like beach balls and six-foot stuffed animals, until you get good at it. Marcie McMillan, my co-star from the failed pilot for that underrated crime-fighting girls show Training Bras, was the master. She once shoplifted an entire aquarium, including fake rocks and a sump pump, out of a pet store while she was only wearing a bikini. I still don't know where she hid that thing. Come to think of it, I don't know what she wanted with an aquarium in the first place, but she was probably just trying to go down in Hollywood lore for something other than being in that Rob Lowe video.

But you also don't want to try and shoplift anything too small, either. Jewelry is tempting, but then there's a danger that you'll forget what you took and only find it when you clean out your purse months later while looking for a lighter. Also from my experience, I'd say that live fish are a poor choice as well. They'll suffocate if there's not enough air in your purse, so you need to either cut some holes ahead of time or get a wicker purse, or come to think of it, just don't try to lift fish. You'll never get that smell out, trust me. Marcie had the right idea with the aquarium, but overall I'd say the pet store is more trouble than it's worth for a celebrity shoplifter.

The easiest things to steal are purses and hats, and really convincing Halloween masks. You just put them on and act like you wore them into the store. If they ask why your hat still has the tag on it, you say that you were going to return it once it went out of style, and look at them like they're stupid. If they don't understand the look, give them a helping hand by referring to them as "Hey, Stupid."

Of course, now that Tinseltown skank Ryder has made it a lot harder for the rest of us, we'll probably have to come up with some new tricks. The next time I go into the May Co. with a giant empty duffel bag, I guarantee you I'll be getting some dirty looks. And this time, it won't be because they thought that was me freak dancing in the new Christina Aguilera video. Thanks a lot, bitch.

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