Magnetic Ribbons Stealing Friendship
"Here's one I've never seen before. It says Support Pole Dancing.' Let's take it." And she did. It was added to the refrigerator where it lived amongst 142 others of its kind.
She stole magnetic "support" ribbons as a hobby one summer. She usually collected them from cars in parking lots, but sometimes, when she was stopped at a red light and spotted a really neat one she'd never seen before, she would slam her car into park and make a mad dash for it. The ribbons themselves supported as many different and diverse causes as could be, and she decorated the refrigerator in her apartment with them. Her boyfriend disapproved, as it was obviously "petty theft," but she had her own motives: "If they really do support the cause, they'll go out and buy more."
The most lucrative day of the hunt was when she and four friends spent the day at an amusement park. Any time someone returned to the car in the massive parking lot to get snacks or freshen up, they would swipe a couple ribbons off parked cars. That parking lot was a goldmine. Now that she had four friends who took up her hobby, they each took up the cause. They each told four friends to take up the cause. Feeling as though she had done her fair share of petty theft, she could now turn over the collection to her friends. A ribbon might have been made to "Support Stealing Ribbons." The campaign was an absolute success, and anytime someone came to visit it was always with a couple of ribbons in tow.
At the end of that summer she had 461 ribbons, supporting everything from cancer cures to food allergy awareness. The refrigerator was coated in layer upon layer of support ribbons. And what this taught her was that the people she cared about supported her. The ribbons would ultimately be given as birthday and Christmas presents for the following couple of years.
The heroine of our story would go on to lose a close friend in the Iraq war. Her first child would be autistic, and her second fatally allergic to nuts. At the end of her life, she developed advanced Alzheimer's and was put in a nursing home which abused its patients horribly. Coincidentally, all of these difficulties which would plague her life were actual "causes" she had stolen support ribbons for. The yellow "Support our troops" ribbon, the puzzle-piece "Autism Awareness" ribbon, and the PB&J-themed ribbon which called for "Allergy Awareness in Schools" all came back to haunt her. As did the black and gold "Support Alzheimer's Patients," and the white and green "Support Responsible Elder Care" ribbons.
But back in that summer of stealing in her young adulthood, it sure was fun while it lasted.
