My recent Hechinger post brought to mind one other tale worth sharing, one I didn’t know how to weave into the rest of my narrative.
One of the part-tome guys who worked at the store was much like me: a clean-cut middle class young man. He was the son of an IBMer and probably never wanted for much growing up. He was pretty friendly and though he worked in a different department we would always say hi to each other.
Then one night my image of him changed completely. We were at a party thrown by one of our coworkers. I took him up on his offer to check out the stereo in his red Mustang. Seeing how impressed I was, he offered to get me one just like it for $50.
What, I said? He then casually explained that he knew some people who could get him “hot” stereos and radar detectors and could hook me up if I wanted.
I was stunned. This kid lived a life of privilege! He could easily afford a legitimate stereo yet he saw nothing wrong with driving around with a stolen one belonging to some unfortunate person. This guy had zero morals. I felt sick to my stomach.
I protested that what he was doing was wrong but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. He just seemed blind to that. From then on I lost all respect for him. In my high school days I spent many hours installing car stereos for my friends and here he was taking them out.
I never forgot that.