Teenager takes money out of his mother’s wallet but soon learns his lesson
He’ll never do this again!
The American teenager Dylan Johnson thought he had figured out an easy way to make money without having to work for it. It didn’t go quite as planned!
Curious to know Dylan’s story? You’ll read it on the next page!
Dylan Johnson
Meet Dylan Johnson, a difficult 16-year-old teenager. According to those around him, Dylan was always a curious, bright boy that always followed the rules. But Dylan made a full 180 when he started high school.
Dylan discovered that parties, hanging out with friends, and other typical teenager activities were a lot more fun that studying for tests. His single mother, Bianca Johnson, had a really hard time seeing her son fall into these bad habits. Her friends assured her that it was just a phase and that he would be back to his usual self in no time, but Bianca wasn’t so sure.
Especially when Dylan went a bit further than harmless mischief.
Lazy
Dylan didn’t do much in a day. He went to school for a few hours, played hooky a few hours, and once he got home, he didn’t even get up from the couch. Bianca had a hard time seeing how lazy Dylan had become. He barely ever spent time doing homework or studying for tests, didn’t help out around the house, and didn’t want to find a job.
No matter how often Bianca tried talking to her son, nothing got through to him. It went in one ear and out the other. It didn’t take long for him to get distracted again, usually by his phone. This day wasn’t any different. After a heated talk with his mom, he texted the group chat with his friends.
He was just about to vent about everything happening when he saw an invitation to a party. He really wanted to go but the invitation said that guests needed to take their own drinks. And didn’t have any money…
The invitation
“Party at my place on Saturday, bring your own drinks. Lots of girls and our pool is open ;)”, the invitation read. The teenager’s mind was in overdrive. Girls? A pool? He had to be there. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any money to buy drinks. And showing up empty-handed was a no go in his friend group.
Dylan decided to send a message. “Hey guys, sounds fun! I’d love to be there but I’m broke… can someone lend me some money?”, he wrote in the chat. It took a while for anyone to respond but the replies he got were more than disappointing. “You still owe me man, I’m not helping you out again. Figure it out.” one friend wrote. “Exactly”, another friend said.
He couldn’t miss this party. The only option was to “figure it out”…
The first time
That night, Dylan’s mom went to bed early. She had an important meeting the next day so she wanted to be well rested when she got to work. She asked Dylan if he was headed to ben soon as well because he had school the next day too. Dylan brushed off her question and said “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go in a bit.”
When he heard her bedroom door shut, he jumped into action. He paused his game and ran towards the coatrack. Without thinking twice, he dug his hands into the pockets of his mom’s jacket. Unfortunately, the only thing he found was her keys, a gum wrapper, and a thing of perfume.
Where did she put her wallet?
The wallet
Dylan was determined to “figure it out”. His friends would have given him weird looks if he showed up to the party empty-handed. No, that wasn’t an option. His mom often had cash at home and wouldn’t notice if a small amount was missing, he convinced himself. But first, he needed to find her wallet…
After a few minutes of digging through her jacket and purse, he caught a glimpse of the wallet. It was on top of the refrigerator. There were four ten-dollar bills in it. Dylan grabbed one of them. All done, now he could show up to the party.
This appeared to be the beginning of a downwards spiral…
The store
The next day after school, Dylan went to the store. This store was infamous for not being too strict. You could easily get soda here as a sixteen-year-old. And that’s just what Dylan did. He handed over the bill that he had taken out of his mom’s purse to the cashier who finished the transaction without any questions.
“Wow”, Dylan thought to himself. “This is the easiest way to make money!”. Without having to do a thing, he had soda to bring to the party. He didn’t have to disappoint his friends by showing up empty-handed and looking like a loser.
It was all so easy. Almost too easy.
A week later
The party was a huge success. Dylan wouldn’t have missed it for all the money in the world. The soda he brought was greatly appreciated because apparently not everyone followed the rules of bringing their own. Before Dylan knew it, his soda had been finished by others.
Pff, who cares. He’d get something in return eventually. He was annoyed however that many people had taken chewing gum out of his pack. Dylan didn’t have any left. He wasn’t going to get his allowance for a while so what was he supposed to do now?
The choice didn’t take long to make…
Once again
Dylan waited yet again for his mom to go to bed before taking a ten-dollar bill out of her wallet. But this time it was even fuller: there was around a hundred dollars in cash in the leather wallet. She surely wouldn’t miss that one bill.
He used the money to buy chewing gum. This time, he decided he wouldn’t share them with others. He couldn’t keep stealing money because his mom would surely find out after a while. Dylan made a promise to himself that this was the last time.
But he didn’t keep the promise for long…
The third time
It was almost addictive how easy it was to get money this way. On top of that, it was his mom… Surely she’d want to give him some extra money if she knew it meant he could have some fun. Asking her for money was a step too far, but Dylan convinced himself it was fine.
On this particular day, Dylan didn’t really need anything but just wanted a pizza. He had just come home from school and his mom was still at work. To his surprise, he saw that her wallet was still at home. The temptation was too hard to resist. He took another ten-dollar bill out of her wallet and ordered a pizza.
She hadn’t noticed a thing the other times…
The pants
In the days after stealing money from his mom’s wallet for the third time, it didn’t seem like she had realized anything. Until Dylan’s mom herself made an interesting offer. He didn’t know what to say: he started to feel a little guilty.
His mom had realized that he always wore the same two pairs of pants. She offered to buy him a new pair. Dylan had to accept her offer… otherwise she would have realized something was up. The offer had one requirement: they had to go to the store together.
Dylan started sweating. What if his mom opened her wallet in the store and realized there was money missing?
In the store
They went to the clothing store together and Dylan tried on a few pairs of pants. Once he had found the right one, they went to the register. Dylan’s mother pulled out her wallet and Dylan’s sleeve was soaking wet from wiping the sweat off his forehead.
Would she see it? Would she notice? Dylan’s knees were shaking while his mother pulled some cash out of her wallet. She counted the money and gave it to the cashier. Dylan stared at his mother’s face. She appeared to be surprised about something.
Now he was going to get it…
Outside of the store
Once they left the store Dylan’s mom lost it. “That much money for a pair of pants like that?!” she screamed. “You used to be able to buy two pairs for that money!”. Dylan was finally able to breathe again once he realized his mom was upset about something else. He went along with it and complained alongside her. He was extremely relieved.
Dylan was very relieved that his mother hadn’t seemed to notice a thing. But this was all too exciting. He decided to never take money out his mom’s wallet again: otherwise he would get it for sure!
Would he really get away with it that easily?
To the movies
“Hey Dylan, there’s a really cool movie playing at the movie theater”, stated a message that Dylan got the next week. The message wasn’t just from anybody, but from a girl he had met a few weeks earlier at the party. What was he supposed to do? Yet again, he didn’t have any money, but he didn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of the girl.
Dylan weighed his options. He couldn’t ask his friends for money: he still owed them. His mom? If he told her it was for a date, she would surely lend him some money. She wouldn’t want to keep him from falling in love.
There was just one hurdle…
Too risky
If Dylan asked his mom for money now, she would have to look in her wallet. She would have to count her money to see if she could spare ten dollars. If she did this then she would surely notice that she was missing quite a bit of cash. Dylan couldn’t take the risk.
Now that his other options were gone, there was just one thing left to do. The only way to get cash on such a short notice to go to the movies was to take it out of his mom’s wallet. But he had promised himself he would never do it again.
Dylan had a difficult choice to make…
Source: https://www.tips-and-tricks.co/various/teenager-takes-money-learns-lesson/