Clearly, this was not the first time Amanda had shoplifted. Was there some sort of adolescent coming-of-age ritual that I had somehow skipped over up until this point? 'That way, they can’t track them when you leave the store.' 'The trick is to not take the ones with the tags,' she said.

Instead, she buttoned down her jeans to reveal a pair of striped bikini briefs. On that day, however, Amanda didn’t play to her role as the corrupted innocent. I was the bad girl from the big city who wore smudged eyeliner and carried menthols in my Hot Topic kitten purse she was the princess from the suburbs who would almost certainly end up majoring in French literature at a liberal arts school. Like most adolescent friendships, we had our circumscribed roles that we both leaned into. 'I’m going to put this on and wear it out of the store.' Amanda was sweet-faced and curly-haired, the type of girl people assumed was nice because she smiled a lot and wore pastel-hued J.Crew cardigans. 'Hey,' I told my friend Amanda* while we were in the dressing room. There may or may not have been a bow tie in the back. It was a pink rayon polka-dot thong from Victoria’s Secret, the type of candy-floss garment that an adolescent girl might find sexy, but that no adult woman would actually wear. I was 13 when I stole my first pair of underwear. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

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Tiny teen thief busted by a