The Great Gummy Bear Caper
A Nerdtown Reverse Heist
It was around 6:45 pm on a Tuesday evening during school vacation week when I may have inadvertently committed one of my sons to a life of crime. I decided to take my three older boys to see Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (highly recommend). Always looking for ways to save a few dollars, my wife suggested we take some of the snack size M&M packs that we had leftover from Easter. As my two oldest gladly grabbed some M&Ms, E (8) reminded everyone that he does not like chocolate. That one complaint set in motion a chain of events that lead to “The Great Gummy Bear Caper.”
His whine about not liking chocolate reminded me that we had a few full size bags of Gummy Bears stashed away in the candy horde. (If you have young kids, I am guessing you have a candy horde.) With great caution, so as to not reveal the location of the great candy horde, I retrieved a bag of Gummy Bears for my son. I handed it to him, and told him to put it in the front pouch of his hooded sweatshirt. Confused, he asked why he could not just carry them in his hand. I thoughtlessly replied something to the effect of not wanting people to see them at the movie theater. With that one careless sentence, my son came to believe he was part of a heist.
Typically, a heist entails the illegal and/or unauthorized removal of valuables from a location. However, 8 year olds are not typically ones for the nuances of language. In his young mind, he was now the central figure in a reverse heist. We were taking something (that we had legally purchased in the past) to a location where it was frowned upon having them. Suddenly, he became a young Matt Damon in the 2001 remake of Ocean’s Eleven when Danny Ocean (George Clooney) approached him to be part of the Bellagio heist. My son was nervous and intrigued all at once.
During the short ride to the movie theater, my eight-year old wore his nervousness on his sleeve. He asked a series of questions like:
Are we allowed to have these?
What will happen if they catch us?
Will the police be there?
My reassurances that this was not a crime did not seem to satisfy him. In his mind, this theater was manned not by disinterested teenagers, but by highly trained security specialists hell-bent on sniffing out smuggled Gummy Bears. When we arrived at the movie theater parking lot, I told him to give me the bag. I would carry them into the theater. He refused. Despite his nervousness, he was committed to the plan.
We went to a small local theater where the concessions and the tickets were sold at the same counter. We bought four tickets ($24 total-not bad) and one large fountain drink, one large popcorn, and a bottle of water ($17-ouch). While the older boys two drifted around the small lobby looking at movie posters, my eight year old stood stoically by my side. Both of his hands shoved into the front of his sweatshirt, undoubtedly grasping the treasured Gummy Bears. We got our tickets, concessions, and proceeded directly to our assigned theater. Never once did my son take his hands out of the sweatshirt pouch or release the gummy bears.
Once inside, my eight year-old sat between me and the twelve year old. (The fourteen year old, on principle, sat on the opposite side of the aisle from us lest someone see him –in the theater with literally only one other patron– and realize he was related to us.) When the movie began, I heard my eight year old chewing. Without removing the bag from his sweatshirt pocket, he had opened it up and was consuming the Gummy Bears. As had been previously agreed, he shared the smuggled loot with the rest of us. But, as the main actor in this elaborate plan, he ate most of them himself.
Throughout the entire two hours of the film, no piece of that plastic Gummy Bear bag was ever visible in the theater. My son’s commitment to this was uncanny. I have no idea what happened to the evidence. I have not seen the package since. There is a very strong possibility it is still sitting his sweatshirt in a pile of dirty laundry somewhere. What I could see was my young son’s pride in a caper well-executed. And, like the Ocean’s Eleven movie, there is inevitably going to be a sequel. And, it will need to be bigger and bolder. I’m thinking Twizzlers.
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When you are there, check out my oldest son’s 24 second film in the style of Wes Anderson titled “The Basketball Player.” He has been on a Wes Anderson kick lately, so this Instagram trend was right up his alley.
This is great! 😂