I (19f) probably am and i feel guilty but im here for advice. So this 91 year old lady that my familys friends(ill call them a and c) took care of died recently. And the ladies children lived abroad. She lived alone other than the occasional care and she died alone, stumbling from the carpet and hitting her head to a furniture. Her house was hard for an old lady to live in. Like idk what her children did at all. So since her children live abroad they left sorting out the stuff to a and c and what they wont take will be left to a and c.
A and c will be selling or gifting since they dont have space. So the children DID come inside the house. There were many sentimental pictures and albums and they did not take any of those. They threw out some of the stuff the lady had and cherished, even some drawings she had done.
Anyways, c was giving me the unwanted jewelery. After she left my eyes were left on this locket in the not decided jewelery box, im a big fan of lockets and theyre kind of hard to find in my country. C said that if the children state that they dont want them i can just take the box anyway.
So this locket from the box caught my interest and i thought it was some cheap metal because it was a bit bent and i fixed it by pushing with my fingers. It was also oxidized inside. I put it in my pocket thinking it’s just not valuable and they’ll throw it away or give it to me anyway.
Then I felt bad at home and thought I should do image search and get myself a similar one. Turns out it has a high chance of being antique and maybe gold? I know nothing about metals i thought it was a cheap mix or copper at most.
But I also feel like since the children didn’t care about any of the arts or sentimental pictures or paragraphs written by this lady, is it really worth to return it? I can return it without anyone noticing. A and c had given me art supplies by this lady and a sketchbook had diary like pages which the lady stated she was very lonely.
But would it be ok for me to make assumptions that the children didn’t care about their mother much? Since the ladies taste in everything she had was similiar to mine would it be more honoring for someone to cherish what once belonged to her? What do you guys say, am I the ah?
YTA – This was not an accident. You stole a locket. You are a thief and now you are looking to reddit to try to justify it.
Hm, YTA. Sounds like it would have been really easy for you to just ask if you could have it, but you didn’t want to be turned down so you justified the heck out of just taking it.
YTA this was no accident, you stole it.
YTA, you stole something that wasn’t yours to take regardless of whether you think the kids care about their mom or not. Return it before anyone notices and stop trying to rationalize theft with “I’d appreciate it more than they would” because that’s not how other people’s property works.
YTA, you stole it and you clearly don’t know what the word “accidentally” means
Gold doesn’t oxidize and you’re a thieving AH.
YTA. You didn’t ask A and C whether you could have the locket. You knew they would tell you that the children had to look at it first. Instead you waited until you were alone with the jewelry box, picked up the locket, and stuck it in your pocket. That’s not an accident. You wanted it so you took it, then hid your actions. Not good.
This could have been easily handled legitimately. She gave you instructions and you didn’t follow them, so in this case, yes you did steal this locket. Take it back. Take a picture of it and ask the kids if they want it. If they don’t, take C up on the offer that you can have it. But until you give each child an opportunity to decline it, it doesn’t belong to you.
Also, don’t make assumptions about what her children are feeing or their relationship with the mom. You have no idea the history between them.
YTA unless you make it right.
YTA. Full stop.
YTA. Return it and own up to it. You stole it. You said yourself the box was not decided. That means also everything in it. There is no possible way to justify what you did. Doesn’t matter the worth, or how much they cared for her. It wasn’t yours to take. What you did is NOT OK.
Yes, you stole from them because they didn’t tell you you could take it. Put it back in the undecided box, and if they want to give it away, then you can take it. But you, by definition, committed theft.
Paragraphs. For the sake of everyone, but especially people who have reading problems *please*. This is near impossible to read.
YTA. You didn’t ***accidentally*** steal something. You ***deliberately*** stole it. Sounds more like you want people to say your excuse is valid, when all it really was is you being a thief.
Don’t steal things from other people.
Also: don’t lie about stealing things from other people or make excuses to justify stealing from other people.
I’m going with YTA but you clearly still have a conscience as you’re feeling guilty enough to ask some internet strangers about it lol
Return the locket (or at the very least ask the lady’s children if they want it so you know for certain), you’ll be doing the right thing and sleeping better at night.
It’s a slippery slope if you justify taking this, you don’t want to do that.