Since the start of my childhood, Nov. 1 meant the 
hanging of a quilt from the stove in my kitchen. 
It was my mom’s “Thankful Quilt,” decorated 
with felt leaves, turkeys and other Thanks-
giving-esque patches. More importantly, the 
quilt was lined with little pockets numbered one 
through 30 — a pocket for each day of the month. 
And every night, before eating dinner, my mom 
would have my sister and I write down what 
we were thankful for that day on tiny paper 
cards that tucked perfectly into the little felt slots. 
We did it each day until all 30 were filled and then 
tucked the quilt away for hibernation until the fol-
lowing November.
Our Thankful Quilt became such a routine part of 
our Novembers that the process came without much 
thought. Sometimes I’d put genuine effort into my 
day’s thankful card. Others, I’d scribble something 
down on the paper to expedite the commencement 
of the meal. If nothing else, the Thankful Quilt was 
familiar — it was tradition.
Last year was my first November away from home, 
yet I never thought about the quilt. I simply didn’t 
have the mental capacity to reminisce. At that time, 
I was preoccupied with the announcement that the 
freshman dorms were closing due to the uncontrol-
lable COVID-19 spread. I was running around Ann 
Arbor trying to find housing for my second semester 
at the University of Michigan. I was worried about 

the friends I had made thus far, or lack thereof, 
and how my social life would play out with com-
mon areas unavailable to us. I was anticipating the 
nearly two-month break that was approaching, 
where the progress I had made in pioneering my 
pandemic-era first semester of college would be 
halted, maybe even reversed. I was operating in 
fight-or-flight, running on autopilot as a defense 
mechanism; thus, the Thankful Quilt didn’t 
grace my thoughts.
This year, with life more settled, the treasured 
novelty made its return into my concerns. On 
Nov. 1, I thought about the bare stove at home, 
which, on this day, was usually made merrier. I 
filled out a mental card and tucked it into a men-
tal Nov. 1 pocket: “I’m thankful that I’m calm 
enough this year to think about our quilt.”
The minute of gratitude felt like progress, 
for sure. I am infinitely grateful that now, come 
November, it doesn’t necessarily feel like 
the world is crumbling in on me. That 
I have certainty of my near future 
and a sense 
of purpose here at 
this 
school. Now I 
realize how much 
our circumstances can 
impact 
what 
we’re 
grateful 
for, 
what 
matters to us, what’s 
relevant, and what 
we feel lucky to have 
as ours. All of this can 
change in just one revolution 
around the sun, one November to 
the next. 
While I’m no lon-
ger in a 

state of 
fight-or-flight, my life 
is still extremely hectic — just 
in a “normal life” sort of way. 
So 
are 
most students’ day-to-days 
here at the 
University. We’re running to classes, extracurricu-
lars, social events and meetings. We’re navigating 
flu season, midterms and course scheduling. No 
one sits us down before dinner to make us pause 
and think. No one straps us to a chair and 
forces us to come up with something we’re 
thankful for before we’re able to receive 
our mobile order from Chipotle on State 
Street. 

But I feel like we’re the ones who need a Thank-
ful Quilt the most, even more so than our 8-year-
old selves. Currently, at the University, we’re 
experiencing some of the most unique, rewarding, 
exciting years of our lives. But often, we’re 
too caught up in the everyday bustle 
to take note of what’s happen-
ing around us. As we run from 
classes to meetings, submit 
one assignment to Canvas and 
begin the next, we lose sight of 
the forest for the trees. That we 
need to stop and smell the roses 
may be cliché, but it’s cliché for 
good reason.
I have lots of anxiety, and I 
admittedly do complain a lot on a 
daily basis. But thinking about 
even how much I’ve grown 
and learned since August, 
or how much I have to 
be grateful for this 
year that would 
have been miss-
ing 
from 
my 
paper 
cards 
last 
year, things are look-
ing, 
overall, pretty positive. 
I 
should 
be taking inventory more 
often to notice 
such a fact. I should be fill-
ing out a thankful card each and every night. 
Moreover, we should notice and applaud what’s 
happening in our lives right now, before all of a sud-
den we’re putting on shorts again. Better yet, before 
we’re putting on a cap and gown, or even more daunt-
ing, professional clothes for our adult-life jobs. 
Even though I let a handful of days slip through 
the cracks, about three days ago I decided I would 
re-implement the Thankful Quilt into my daily 
practice. Before allowing myself to indulge in my 
dinner, whatever and wherever it is, I’ve been 
pausing to write a mental card and place it in a 
mental pocket. On Nov. 8, I was thankful that 
I’m living in a sorority house with friends I’ll have for 
the rest of my life. On Nov. 9, I was thankful that I 
have such a well-rounded slew of classes and extra-
curriculars that are rewarding to me. I was grate-
ful 
for Parents Weekend on Nov. 
10 and Thursday nights 
out on Nov. 11. Come 
Nov. 12, I was 

grateful that we can now go to basketball games at 
the Crisler Center. 
I called my mom alerting her of my practice, and 
she revealed that she’d saved the 
cards my sister and I had written 
growing up. Dug out from the 

bottom 
of a drawer, they read: “I’m thankful 
for Eggos pancakes;” “I’m thank-
ful that we have medicine;” “I’m 
thankful that I have time to 
practice my dance routine 
for Sunday;” “I’m thankful 
for sweatpants;” and “I’m 
thankful that we get to visit 
Michigan this weekend.”
Ironically, not much has changed. While I’m 
newly thankful to be secure in how to navigate a col-
lege campus, for Thursday nights out and for weeks 
without too much work, I’m still thankful for Eggo 
pancakes, and I’m always happy about a day spent in 
sweats. Coincidentally enough, I have a hip-hop team 
performance on Saturday and am still thankful that 
I’ve had enough time to practice for it. And obviously, 
I am thankful that I now go to Michigan and am here 
every weekend.
We should always be grateful for those nuts and 
bolts that withstand changing circumstances; like 
family, good health, and of course, sweatpants. But 
changing or static, whether we’re 10 or 20, it’s the 
stepping back, seeing the big picture and acknowl-
edging our blessings that matters. Because life moves 
quickly — as quickly as the slots on the Thankful 
Quilt fill up, and as quickly as I grew up and am no 
longer home to partake in the activity. 
Luckily, I’ll be home soon for Thanksgiving 
break to fill out pre-dinner thankful cards. But 
until then, and maybe even after, I think I’ll con-
tinue filling out my mental ones. Tonight, I am 
thankful for tradition, for the quilt itself. Of all my 
years slipping cards into those felt pockets, I never 
gave thanks to their reliable, yearly presence over 
my stove. I think my thanks is long overdue. Our 
little family ritual taught me to value the moment 
and 
what I have in it. And while I can’t carry 
the Thankful Quilt with me, I can cer-
tainly carry its teachings.

LILLY DICKMAN
Statement Correspondent

Wednesday, December 1, 2021 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

S T A T E M E N T

Thankful for feeling Thankful

It’s mid-January, so it’s cold outside. In front of the 
sliding glass doors of the superstore, one can see the 
glimmer of snowflakes falling in the navy of night 
and the resulting slush on the pavement. Inside the 
doors, however, it’s warm. Fluorescent lights flood 
the surfaces and the metal shelves, filled to the brim 
with products across all genres. The rows have a cer-
tain metallic shine. Workers pace diligently through-
out the store, but a particular corner goes unnoticed. 
Hidden behind the vacant check-out counters is 
a group of teenagers unable to be seen due to height 
and in sufficient quantity to make a calculated circle. 
In the middle of this circle is a pair of hands, prying 
open the paperboard that contains a plush fried egg 
collectible. The collection of heads maintain the noise 
level with conversation and ensure security by fre-
quently glancing outside of the huddle. The fried egg 
is freed from the confines of plastic and paper and is 
slipped silently into a jean pocket. Smiles of success 
are exchanged, and the group splits up into different 
checkouts to pay for the legally obtained items. The 
group ventures back into the winter’s night. It was 
only a few minutes after initiation, and the theft was 
complete. 
What they did was illegal under all interpretations 
of the law and could land any of them with a scratch 
on their permanent record. But, was not paying for a 
small toy wrong? 
Stories of small thefts, trespassing, and other petty 
crimes are often taboo subjects, especially among 
classmates or acquaintances whose potential reac-
tions are hard to anticipate. Once one anecdote is 
shared, however, the door often opens for many more 
— what was once underground flows out to the sur-
face. Conversations of recent robberies serve as a sort 
of group therapy among youth and young adults, vali-
dating an experience many keep within them due to 
fear of the law. Where the law and the general public 
draw the line is not necessarily the same, however. 
Hobby Lobby has been called “the best place to steal 
from,” with social media users citing its lack of bar-
codes and cameras. Others’ justification stems from 
the chain’s conservative anti-worker and anti-LGBT+ 
policies. Similarly, people steal from national chain 
stores like Walmart and Kroger with the mindset of 

fighting back against billion-dollar corporate-con-
glomerates. 
The reasoning above is easy to say out loud, but 
are these actions doing any good in the real world? 
Target stores were looted in Minneapolis during 
summer 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, some 
arguing that the losses would not even affect the 
superstore’s bottom line. But as The Atlantic points 
out, looters are usually different people than peace-
ful protestors, and what is equated with altruism may 
just be a vehicle for young adrenaline. 
***
When one types in “Target,” “Meijer,” or any other 
retail giant into Google Maps while looking at south-
east Michigan, many red pins appear just a few miles 
apart, affixed to the suburban grid-like knots on a 
quilt. The streets are threaded together by the conti-
nuity of corporate brands that might invoke a seasick 
sense of deja vu if one drives down them for too long. 
This repetition has no meaningful rhythm; the logos 
on metal poles that are meant to excite and attract 
blend together into a neon malaise. 
It is easy to feel a sort of contempt and powerless-
ness when faced with the monolithic stucco walls 
and fields of pavement that characterize the land-
scape, even while equipped with the American ide-
als of freedom, and if you’re lucky, leisure time. After 
work and school are done for the day, what is there to 
do? And when the pressure to buy into the capitalist 
ecosystem becomes too much, what else is there to do 
but take back? Stealing as a way to feel something, as 
some may put it, is an increasingly acceptable source 
of entertainment. What other activity puts our brain 
and survival instincts to the test in a world where 
most things are a part of a dull exchange? Under the 
falling snow of a January night, what else besides 
theft with friends gets the blood pumping so quickly 
and with great reward? The capitalist fabric of Amer-
ica has stolen so much from people, whether it be 
space, time, or variety — doesn’t it only make sense to 
take some of that back? 
This power dynamic is what seems to propel the 
thrill: Underdog customers stick it to the man by 
sticking something in their pockets. When “the man” 
is actually a person, whether that be a small business 
owner, a neighbor, or a friend of a friend, the action 
of robbery trespasses into something more personal. 
Walking down the tree-lined streets of Ann Arbor, 
many stores are one of a kind, titled with names of 

owners or the street that they are on; hand-painted 
windows advertising their particular niche. Go to 
a farm stand in Kerrytown enough times and you 
might get your apple cider with a side of pleasant 
banter, and learning the name of a new kind of let-
tuce might lead you to know the names of the people 
that sell the produce. The experience of shopping 
small is one that is photogenic, Instagram-mable and 
yields memories worth posting about in the increas-
ingly popular monthly photo dump. On the contrary, 
heading over to Walgreens or CVS to spend money on 
generic snacks can’t be romanticized.
But stealing them can. 
TikToks with the hashtag “#deviouslicks” have 
sprung up on the For You Page of millions, in an effort 
to channel a rebellious version of the main charac-
ter archetype. They usually begin by describing the 
theft as “diabolical”, “devious” or “ungodly” as a 
remix of a 2014 Lil B song sings in the background. 
A few seconds later as the video concludes, one sees 
the unscrewing of a hubcap in the parking lot, or the 
empty holes of plumbing in the bathroom where a 
toilet usually connects. (It is worth noting that upon 
searching for the hashtag today, TikTok will invite 
you to learn how to recognize “harmful challenges”.) 
What is unique about these videos is the focus on 
stealing from one’s own school. Any unsupervised 
area is fair game: the soap dispensers of the boy’s 
bathroom, stockpiles of disposable masks formerly 
tucked away in closets or the occasional ceiling tile. 
To users, the risk of discipline is a small price to pay 
for the souvenirs of classroom chairs and the rush of 
recognition from millions of online peers. The bore-
dom of mandatory education seeks to be remedied 
through the creation of avant-garde collections of 
stolen institutional furniture. 
Yet unlike the retailers that dot the suburbs, 
schools do not aim to make money and in many areas, 
do not have enough. While the chronic underfunding 
of schools is low on the list of things someone who is 
about to steal the door to a bathroom stall might be 
thinking about, there are some who carefully consider 
the ethics of where exactly they choose to steal. This 
includes large corporations as mentioned earlier, but 
also not-for-profit retail stores like the Salvation Army 
and Goodwill over concerns of worker exploitation 
and discrimination. Perhaps viewed as more envi-
ronmentally and financially conscious consumerism 
by the perpetrators, those in older generations may 

look 
down 
upon 
stealing this 
from charity, 
making it harder to 
do the good 
work these organizations have 
done.
But are the conditions of suburban boredom and 
corporate conglomerates enough to justify stealing 
when others have to do it out of necessity? Shoplifting 
due to hunger increased during the pandemic, and 
it’s hard to criticize people who steal so they can put 
food on the table. What’s a semi-frequent thrill for 
some is a fact of life for many, and a means of enter-
tainment doesn’t share equal weight to means of 
survival. One’s economic status and race affect how 
accessible shoplifting is. Depending on the color of 
the person’s hands peeling back the packaging of the 
toy that January night, the consequences could range 
from life-altering to a forgotten memory. Although 
an isolated act of theft from corporations does not 
necessarily affect any individual, in particular, does 
stealing wrongly take advantage of a justice system 
that’s overbearing on some people and too passive 
on others? Are the desires to bring back power to the 
common people served by ethical stealing if not all 
people can participate? As one considers the justifica-
tions of what they’re stealing from, it’s worth consid-
ering their own identity, and if they are shifting the 
societal power dynamic at all.
The phrase “there is no ethical consumption 
under capitalism” gets thrown around a lot on the 
University of Michigan’s campus, but it’s not too 
clear what this means for theft. Everyone has differ-
ent comfort lines, and the gradient of what’s honor-
able isn’t linear. Rather, this invisible boundary can 
be twisted and molded to whatever shape of justifica-
tion one might like — including the want for a collect-
ible plush egg. To be clear: theft is very much illegal, 
but it also takes creativity, courage, and gusto and 
can provide new social and philosophical realms for 
people to explore. In a system that undervalues the 
arts and emphasizes infatuation with the stock mar-
ket, exactly where money and resources should end 
up is blurred with collective selfishness. So, if you’re 
buying a card for a friend or getting ingredients to 
feed someone dinner, why not grab the things for free 
and get some adrenaline for yourself? The only thing 
stopping you is your own moral judgment.

OSCAN NOLLETTE-PATULSKI
Statement Correspondent

On ethical stealing

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Brittany Bowman

