The Collection Thief

The Collection Thief

I figured since I was going to be a thief, I might as well be of the most despicable type. Rather than steal individual items, I thought I’d go all the way, and steal effort as well. Money can be replaced, time and effort never. If you are talking about value, I pull off the most invaluable heists, simply because effort and time have an infinite, arbitrary value. It is not as though I was born a thief, nor did I aspire to become one. I never stole till I turned 25, not even a sweet from a classmate or a shower cap from a hotel.

The first collection I stole was from a Friday night house party, one of those shallow little things you do not really look forward to but go for anyway, to eliminate all chances of feeling bad that you are at home on a Friday night. The party was hosted by a friend of a friend, someone I have never seen or heard of before. The volume of an old Dandy Warhols album swelled as the door opened, and the host of the house greeted me with a firm handshake. I couldn’t really hear what he was saying, but his name was Weijie. I know at least 4 Weijies. His Siglap apartment was nowhere as mundane and generic as his name was. Furnished simply and effectively, I wondered how someone as boring looking as Weijie could have planned the place out so well. There weren’t many pieces of furniture, nor were they exquisitely made, but they were extremely well positioned. So much so that it felt as though the furniture spoke to you, asking you to make full use of them.

I took a seat on a very comfortable sofa, and my friend walked off to do socializing. Occasionally someone would sit next to me, not exactly to talk, I suspect more to rest their feet on the lovely sofa. After an hour or so Weijie for some unexplainable reason disappeared into a bedroom, and after a brief moment reappeared clutching a brown leather folder. The fifteen or so members of the party continued with their conversations but each kept a curious eye on the leather folder.

‘This, is a collection of ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ and ‘PLEASE MAKE UP MY ROOM’ signs that I have collected over 9 years. They originate from more than 23 countries. Angola, Oman, Laos, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Canada, Djibouti, Taiwan, Portugal, Mongolia.. I can’t even remember all of them.’ He explained as he carefully took each sign out of their individual plastic wrappings.
Clearly none of the people gave half a fuck, but me, I was spell bound. I knew I had to have that collection along with that effort and persistence. A few people took polite glances at the door signs and returned it to him. I’m sure Weijie could tell no one really cared. He returned the door signs to the folder walked back to the bedroom.

I figured I would pretend to get drunk so that none of them would get suspicious if I left too early. I took about 7 shots of vodka and 2 large glasses of beer and pretended to be inebriated but I knew what I was doing. It is just another day at work for my seasoned liver. Some really drunk girl with half her breasts swelling out of her tight dress brought another six shots of vodka over. I drank one in front of her but while everyone was caught up with one thing or another, I tipped the 5 shots into the cats drinking bowl. Half an hour after midnight I excused myself to use the toilet, but I was headed in search for the leather folder. Weijie had made the mistake of leaving it conspicuously on a made bed. I looked out of the 5th floor window and spied a small garden with a single dim lamp post. Without thinking I flung the folder out into the bushes and returned to the party, all the time thinking when I should leave. After a couple of people had left, I decided it was time to make a move. I told Weijie and the mutual friend I had to go home and have sex with my girlfriend, which was not entirely untrue. They did the usual guy thing of persuading me to stay ‘just awhile more’, but I was firm and thanked him for the ‘great party’, and left quickly.

On the way down as the uniform buzz of the ventilator spun in my head I was stabbed with guilt. Why am I dong this?
‘Because that collection is fucking great!’ I quickly answered myself. I have not looked back since.
I looked around a couple of times casually to check if the coast was clear, and it was. I found the leather folder exactly where I had seen it land. I stuffed it under my shirt, leaving the condominium coolly, walking past the security guard who had his eyes fixed on the largest cause of security lapses; solitaire.

I hailed a cab and in the backseat I grinned to myself, feeling like I had just scored a winning goal for Singapore in the world cup finals, knowing damn well there was no pride in what I was doing. When I got home I locked myself in the toilet, so anxious to go through the loot I was perspiring. With trembling hands I examined each sign front and back, counting seventy four signs in total. He had visited numerous towns in each country, collecting from the various hotels and guesthouses he stayed in. The hotels he stayed at ranged from the extravagant ones like Hilton and Hotel Intercontinental to the local hotels. The local hotels mostly had the signs printed in the local language. I was impressed at the countries he had visited.
Suddenly three crisp knocks came from the door. I placed the leather folder under a towel on the bathroom counter and opened the door.

‘Hey baby..what is taking you so long in there?’ my girlfriend asked. I could see that she had just woken up.
‘Just taking a big dump,’ I lied, thinking to myself I had just created a lie that I’m going to have to keep up with.
‘I don’t smell anything. You normally stink up the place.’ She replied, with her eyes narrowing in on mine.
‘Well, next time I’ll be sure to keep some of my shit for your aromatic perusal,’ I joked.
Theft and lies, all started in one night.
She laughed and rolled her eyes.
‘Come to bed soon alright?’
‘Sure,’ I said watching her walk off, eyeing her bum through her think silk pajamas.

I showered and got into bed. That night we made love but all I could think of was the next collection I was going to steal.

My life went on as per normal, apart from breaking up with my girlfriend. I couldn’t imagine marrying her anyway. After a week of feeling sorry for myself, I put her in the section of my brain which stored useless memories and facts that did not benefit me whatsoever. It is very hard to forget things that you once knew existed without a shadow of a doubt, so the least that could be done is to render them functionless. In that section of useless things in my brain along with ex-girlfriends were the names of once famous football players and murderers, disgraced politicians, bad advertisements and algebra.
I did not have to lie or make any special effort to conceal the first theft. Three months went by, and I thought less and less about the next theft. That was until Chinese New Year came about.

While visiting a distant aunt, I had noticed a series of Chinese calligraphy that hung listlessly on various walls around the house. Although I had no prior interest in Chinese calligraphy, and I still don’t, I knew again right away that I had to have some of these paintings. This however was not going to be easy as the first theft. Majority of the calligraphy was hung in the living room which was filled with visiting relatives who were handing out red packets, snacking on New Year goodies, and talking about how much the kids have grown since they met last New Year.
I pretended to receive a call of certain importance and excused myself, walking towards the backyard, slowly surveying the calligraphy on the walls and peering into rooms. On the 8th or 9th piece of calligraphy that I had observed, I stopped dead in my tracks. This was it. I read the artists signature slowly, again and again. I had heard or read of his name somewhere but it took me awhile to recognize whose it was. This piece was painted by the younger brother of the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Prince Pujie. I grinned slightly impressed that I managed to recall some history I had studied in secondary school. I walked deeper into the guestroom, towards the calligraphy. I closed the door enough to block me from sight of anyone passing in the corridor.
In my haste to find the perfect calligraphy, I had not realised that there was a cot in room. And in the cot, was my cousin’s 20 month old son, who was asleep.

I hurried over to the wall. The calligraphy was easy to remove. It hung on a single plastic hook. I rolled the scroll up and as delicately as rape shoved down the length of my jeans. I probably should have handled it better but time wasn’t on my side. I took another two smaller calligraphies that hung on the wall and did the same, rolling them up and shoving them down my pants, into my socks.
When I turned around to beat a hasty retreat I noticed the baby awake and staring at me. The baby was strangely still and its gaze was frighteningly conscious.

‘Look away baby!’ I whispered, knowing damn well that the baby would not understand.
I left the room as quickly as I could before the baby cried for his parents. I walked towards the car via the side of the house, through the backyard, keeping the stolen pieces in the recess of the boot where the spare tire sat.
I returned to the house and sat on the sofa coolly eating Bak Kwa and peanuts, hoping that no one would discover the missing pieces anytime soon. As luck had it, no one did, until a day later when the maid had went in to clean up the room. Even my cousin had not noticed the missing calligraphy when he had went in to get the baby.
‘I wonder who would be as cheap and disgusting as to steal as a guest!’ my mother said to me a few days later when I went over for dinner.
‘Beats me mom. How low of the thief,’ I said with a perfectly straight face.

And for the next 3 years this went on. Every now and then I’d find a collection of something that I wanted desperately, and I’d steal it. When I saw these things it felt as though I couldn’t possibly continue with my life if I didn’t have it. Kleptomania? I don’t think so. I do not even believe such a thing exists. It is just a fancy medical term people use to cut themselves some slack, when all there is to any sort of theft is, plain and simple, greed and the lack of moral fiber to prevent succumbing to temptation.
In 3 years beginning with hotel signs I stole from the Friday party till now, I have stolen lunchbox collections, key chain collections, vintage jazz vinyl collections, SIM card collections, bus ticket collections, the list goes on. Each time I stole something I’d feel like it was effort and time I gained. I never sold anything I stole. I kept all of them. Sometimes I’d just lose track of time looking around my house taking a tour of everything that I’ve stolen, and I would equate each stolen collection to days, weeks and hours.

It is possible to be successful as a thief. Most people get away with it a couple of times, but the difference between a successful thief and a failure of a thief is that the successful thief knows when to bail. There is a right time for everything and when luck runs dry, a wrong time. As long as you know the safe duration between aborting and when shit goes down, you are a successful thief.

I bailed one sudden day, realizing its time to quit this once and for all, to remain successful. I had let the whole rush of gaining time and effort suck me through a tube and convince me that I could attempt to steal a collection of tropical fishes from a pretty fish tank display in a car dealers two levels under the office that I work at. I had made friends with a security guard as he did his rounds, and got to be quite close with him. I’d buy him a beer sometimes if I knocked off really late. Eventually I bribed him. There is no honor in that but somehow he was unaffected, and as I began an attempt to explain to him how it was just the fish I wanted, he told me he did not want to hear my story and handed me a bunch of keys, not before stuffing the five crisp 50 dollar bills into his breast pocket.

That evening I found myself wearing an ex-girlfriends unwashed stocking over my head, standing over the 6 foot high fish tank trying to net a beautiful Aztec Cichlid that kept evading my advances. And just like that, I realised it was time to bail. I left the car dealers office immediately.



Another random Friday, while cutting loose with my mates at a bar, a girl of about 20 comes up to me with a drink in her hand. Her type is obvious; the young, totally plain and normal kind of girl who wants to be different, special, and treated with unearned respect. We talked to each other at a corner of the bar further away from the jukebox.
‘So you are 28, single, and work for an events management company. Is that it? Don’t you have any hobbies or collect anything?’ she said, obviously losing interest in me, disappointed by my boring answers to her boring questions and the way I led my boring lifestyle.
‘I used to collect collections,’ I said before excusing myself to return to my friends, drinking till the pub closed in the gentle hours of the brand new Saturday morning.