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1990. My best mate Rich and myself were living in a shitty little flat in a rough inner city suburb of Christchurch and we were on the dole. So one Thursday (Dole Day), we walked the mile or so to Sydenham to do our grocery shopping at our favourite discount supermarket — ‘Price Choppers’. We had acquired a bad habit over the last couple of months of supplementing our weekly shop with a little ‘five finger discounting’. Nothing major — we would usually go round the supermarket and do our shop, then at the end grab four or five expensive little cheeses from the deli section and hide them down our pants. (We would wear elasticated baggy track pants for the purpose). You see, we both shared a deep love of cheese — but on our meagre income, we could really only afford to buy the large budget block of cheddar to last for the week, but of course — we wanted the good stuff. So on this particular Thursday, we had gone through the check out and were just walking out the door with our bags of groceries, when three large Samoan security guards seemed to appear out of nowhere and surround us. One of them said ‘We know you’ve got cheese down your pants, bro’ We were rumbled. I just fessed up and said ‘Yep, we have’ ‘OK — come with us’ They marched us through the supermarket to the back of the store, other shoppers pointing and staring — and upstairs to the managers office. The manager made us empty the cheese out from the bottom of our pants and put the items on the desk and asked if we had any other stolen items on our person or in our shopping bags, which we didn’t. He called the cops and told us to wait… 20 minutes later, the cops arrived, marched us back through the store (more pointing and staring), put us in the back of the squad car and drove us to Sydenham Police Station around the corner. Once at the cop shop, they took down our particulars, got statements, confessions etc, then locked me in one cell and Rich in another — and left us there for four hours. Eventually they let us out and told us to expect a court summons in the next few weeks. It was now pissing down outside and we trudged the mile or so home with our shopping and arrived back at the flat, soaked to the skin and feeling a little sorry for ourselves. Sure enough — three weeks later, I checked the mail box one day — and there they were, our court summons. I thought to myself… ‘All this for a few bits of CHEESE?!’ (BUT — theft IS theft) Anyway — Rich and I couldn’t help but see the ridiculousness of the situation and basically saw it as a great opportunity… To ‘dress up’ for our big day in court! Now at the time we were both pretty flamboyant dressers (being musos), and we owned some fairly out there (and arguably ‘disgusting’) apparel… And I actually have a fairly good memory of what we were wearing that day… ME — my super wide white and grey houndstooth flares, blue hightop sneakers, red silk shirt, white tie with red and blue polka dots and a powder blue suit jacket… RICH — his ‘dayglo’ pastel ‘Miami Vice’ ensemble… green trousers, pink shirt and white suit jacket. Basically, we looked like a pair of clowns minus the wigs, red noses and make up. So we find ourselves sitting in the waiting room outside the courtroom with the other ‘criminals’ waiting for our case to be called. The other ‘criminals’ I think weren’t really sure what to make of us, as in, whether we were just a couple of dickheads who required a beating, or whether we were a pair of complete Psychos… (I think we were somewhere in between) Eventually, it was our turn, a policeman led us into the packed courtroom, ushered us toward the defendant stand and took a seat… In the silence, we stood there staring straight ahead — trying to appear solemn with our hands behind our backs whilst the judge flicked through the paperwork in front of him for half a minute, a couple of times glancing over his glasses to give us a stern look… Again — I could see quite a few people in the courtroom giving us quizzical looks…. You could almost hear them thinking ‘Who the HELL are THESE guys?!’ The judge began… ‘On the morning of (blah blah blah) at Price Choppers Supermarket in Sydenham, the accused were seen to place several items of cheese in their trousers and attempt to leave the premises without paying for said items… (stifled laughter) ‘They were stopped at the exit by store security and when questioned as to the offense, openly admitted that they did indeed have the suspected stolen items on their person’… ‘How do you both plea?’ ‘Guilty Your Honour’ we both said. (more stifled laughter — and one woman actually burst out laughing) The judge gave her a withering glance, then gave us a long, hard stare and said… ‘Taking into account that this is your first offense and the fact that you both openly admitted to the offense when apprehended and questioned — I have decided to be lenient and fine each of you $150 plus $35 court costs’ ‘Thank you Your Honour’ we said. ‘I trust you have both learnt your lesson and I do not expect to see either of you in my courtroom again!’ ‘Yes Your Honour’ The whole courtroom was on the verge of completely losing it now… I could see some people’s faces bursting with restrained laughter — others couldn’t even look at us for fear of cracking up. ‘Good’ said the judge. ‘Now get out of my sight…. NEXT! We walked home feeling pretty chuffed with our little circus act, but also felt very humbled that a few bits of cheese had caused so much hassle and cost us so much (not just money wise — but we now both had a criminal record) Moral of the story? Cheese is a highly addictive and delicious substance that has been known to cause irrational behaviour in some individuals — use with caution.