Two Florida women—childhood friends, recently reunited—were arrested Wednesday for attempting to shoplift swimsuits. One of them, the Ocala Star-Banner reports, was eating beef jerky. The women told cops they were attempting to cross an item off their bucket list. (Presumably stealing, or maybe just "getting swimsuits for free somehow," or maybe eating beef jerky in Walmart in which case the shoplifting was really not warranted.)
The bikini bandits, 36-year-old Andrea Mobley and 38-year-old Jennifer Morrow, explained to police that they were childhood friends who had recently reconnected and come up with a bucket list of activties they wanted to do together before their bones turned to dust. Item one: commemorate their reunion with some petty theft. The petty theft their lives would have been incomplete without performing (hence: bucket list). To Walmart!
A store security officer told police that she saw Morrow browse the racks and stuff some bathing suits into her purse while Mobley ate beef jerky. Mobley then went into a fitting room and put a swimsuit on under her clothes (and over her belly, full now, of beef jerky). Then the women attempted to exit the store without paying.
Here's how the Star-Banner describes their mindset and dietary habits:
“[Mobley] said putting on the suit was ‘an impulsive thing,’ as was eating the beef jerky.”
People. You have gotten out of control with your bucket lists.
You see Morgan Freeman do something in a movie once, and all of a sudden you’re eating dinner at the Chevre d'Or in France and you’re wearing an all white suit and living in a big white room and you’re driving Miss Daisy. Just because Morgan Freeman does something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you to do it.
The problem with bucket lists is that they are not consecrated documents that trump the law of the land. You know what “stealing” is, in addition to item No. 8 on your bucket list? Illegal. You might feel like you’re not really stealing—you do have enough money to pay for this knickknack, after all you’re just pocketing it to cross a number off the ol’ bucket list!—but most stores do not have a “valuable life experience” loophole when it comes to prosecuting shoplifters.
Of course you want to relish the power that comes from feeling a victim’s lifeless body slump back against your own or know the rush that comes from setting a stranger’s house on fire. We all want that. But these activities are illegal and, hence, good things to leave off your bucket list.
Morrow and Mobley were both arrested and taken to jail, where their bond was set at $250 each. Morrow told a judge that stealing the swimsuits was “not something I wanted to do, but we both decided to do it.” Mobley told the Star-Banner it was Morrow's idea to steal.
Hopefully the next item on their bucket list was “break up a lifelong friendship.” If so, they're right on pace.
[Ocala Star-Banner // Image via Shutterstock]
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