Scam Goddess by Laci Mosley

Author:Laci Mosley [Mosley, Laci]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

SCAM LIFE LESSON

Sometimes you gotta do bad to do good.

To be honest, I still believe that sometimes you gotta do bad to do good. So while my mom was getting dinner ready, I grabbed a handful of change and snuck it into my backpack, putting each coin in a different compartment so they wouldn’t clink together. Little Laci was smart, generous, and sneaky.

The next day at school, I showed Jasmine my loot and her eyes lit up. “Thanks, Laci!” she squealed before giving me a big hug. My body filled up with the warmth of a good deed, like, Shoot, maybe I don't even need my own lunch money anymore. My stomach is full on friendship. The next day, I brought Jasmine another handful of my mom’s purse change. I continued to bring her handfuls of change until my mama stopped jingling when she came home. One day, shortly after my mom realized that her purse was too light and too quiet, she confronted one of the two people living in the house at the time: me.

“Laci, have you been stealing change out of my purse?” she asked, arms crossed, face twisted into a frown.

I wilted immediately. “Yes, I was taking the change.” I have no backbone when it comes to my mom. I got in trouble—big trouble. Trouble at my mom’s house meant I had to write an essay based off a mother-assigned chapter from our set of Black History Encyclopedias. Did y’all know the kings of Nubia conquered and ruled Egypt for about a century? Because my little thieving ass did.

The next day, I had to tell my bestie, Jasmine, with the freaka sex boyfriend that I didn’t have any purse coins for her. I was sweating. I really loved being her friend, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I worried that if I disappointed her she would withdraw her friendship. This is something I’m still battling today: that fear of disappointing people. It’s the curse of being a people-pleaser. We’re so scared of losing love, we’d rob our own mamas just to keep it.

When I finally worked up the courage to tell Jasmine that the purse-money pipeline had dried up, Jasmine—to my surprise—did. not. care. at. all. “Oh, that’s fine!” she said, after which she promptly went to buy her own lunch with her OWN MONEY. Turns out, Jasmine didn’t need my mama’s purse coins at all. She was just using me for some extra quarters and dollars. And I don’t blame her—after all, I was freely offering them to her!

So what’s the lesson here? Hm? Well, we should all help our friends, of course. But it’s not our responsibility to full-on insert ourselves into problems no one asked us to fix. If you want to volunteer, do that. But when it comes to friendships, be careful about pouring too much of yourself into something that’s not meant to be. Jasmine never even asked for my help. Walk it back to the top of the chapter. Jasmine never explicitly asked for me to pay for her lunches.

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