And now to wrap up this sad tale, let me tell you a few things more. Whereas with comics I'd almost always re-read them, some so many times that they became just reader's copies, really, no one in their right mind would pay a dime for it, with magazines I'd usually just read them the once, and then probably never pick them up again, unless some issue or the other had something that really interested me. When I was in the eighth grade, there was a kid who I got along with - I can't remember his name - and he was this sort of middle-to-upper class kind of kid that seemed really out of place in that awful school I had to go to. But be that as it may, he was actually a really nice kid, probabçy one or two years younger than me, and though he didn't seem the sort, he was into metal as well. It's quite likely that I mooched some stuff from him as well. But he was also into a number of other things too... I can't recall if he was into comics or not, but for sure he was into pro wrestling and video games, and me being the sort of entrepreneurial kid that always made sure to pounce when given the chance, I started selling to this kid the magazines I was stealing, and I'd sell them at maybe half of the cover price, which meant I still managed to make some change. Before, I'd only steal video game and metal magazines, but I started stealing the WWF for him as well. It was a nice little deal we had going, and certainly made my time at that school a bit more bearable because I'd found a way to fund whatever else I wanted and couldn't steal. And, to the best of my knowledge, I only almost got caught once, though it was just a spat between me and one the girls who worked there, and I asked her what proof she had, and she naturally none, so that died down immediately. It also helped that I didn't just go there every day, sometimes I'd be a couple of weeks without going, or if I went, I'd lift nothing.
Fast forward a year or so later, and after meeting S. in the ninth grade, and we started going to our first real comic shop - at least we thought it that way, though we didn't know any better back then. Though this was a relatively small palce, it was packed to the brim with books - mostly graphic design - and laserdiscs, if you remember them. Then, there was a row of maybe four or five longboxes filled with back issues, and next to it a shelf with a handful of paperbacks that went all but unnoticed by us for a long time. And though a handful of people worked there, only a couple of them really cared about the comics bit of the business, and even then, probably not very much at all, really. Which meant that they cared little when my trusted grey neoprene folder started to leave that store filled with comics. I'm sure they knew - they just didn't care. That stealing continued well into 1995, when by now already going to almost a proper comic shop, I'd 'borrow' some stuff too. I didn't know back then, but years later I'd come to learn that they were aware all along that I was stealing from them.
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