Not many would suspect it.

Me, a nondescript 18-year-old girl, robbing a jewelry store.

Normally, it’s a man who does such things.

I mean, really, robbing a store? Even though it is a jewelry store, and diamonds are, at least according to Marilyn Monroe, “a girl’s best friend,” but still ... It’s still, just like, sooooo unladylike.

Seriously. Close your eyes and think about someone robbing a jewelry store. Do you picture a girl? Is that the first image that comes to mind?

Probably not.

I mean, come on, would Marilyn Monroe ever commit an armed robbery?

Probably not.

Nope. When I say “armed robbery” you probably start envisioning, like, some drug addict guy. A wild-eyed freak, a strung-out meth addict, or a pill popper, with missing front teeth, ratty clothes.

Or a thug covered in tattoos, with, like, tons of face tattoos, the type you’d see in a documentary about prison.

Or a criminal gang, professional crooks, with walkie-talkies, and ski-masks, toting guns and duffel bags, an idling getaway car outside...

Oh, or maybe you’re thinking of scenes from Michael Bay movies, all that sort of crap, right?

But no. It was me. I did it. Me, a totally unremarkable young girl.

Honestly, it’s the first time in my life anyone has ever cared what I did. I’m usually inconspicuous. I’m a plus-size girl, which kinda renders me invisible. No one ever really notices or pays attention to fat girls. Maybe that’s why I thought I could get away with it. I’ve always been adept at disappearing.

Okay, okay, so you’re probably like, “Why turn to crime?! Get a job, you bum!” and I understand that. But it’s not so simple. Let me explain.

My father died of a heart attack last year. Then three months ago, my mother had one of her feet amputated, due to her diabetes, so now she’s homebound.

I’d planned to go to college, to study nursing. Like, I’ve had a ton of practice, nursing, already, having cared for my mother, so I thought it’d be a suitable career. But after my father died, and especially after my mom’s operation, there were just too many bills, and college wasn’t an option.

And the costs kept piling up. Medical bills. Rent. Utilities. I’d been working at a fast-food shop, the only job I could get, to help with the bills, but the money I was earning hardly made a dent, and further we sunk into debt.

It’s not like we had much saved. My father was a construction worker, didn’t make much. My mother was a line chef at a hotel and didn’t make much either. Our family is scattered, living in different places, and they are also poor, so it’s not like we had a rich uncle to call.

Unable to pay rent, we were facing eviction. Our choices were, basically, to either go live on the street or to somehow pay the rent. Oh, and the back rent too.

So, after watching a movie about a bank robber, I came up with an idea. I’d do that. I’d rob a bank. I’d dash off with a boatload of cash, the type of cash that’d make all our problems vanish.

I thought that’d be the perfect place to rob, a bank, because that’s where the money is, right? But I couldn’t figure out how to do it and get away with it. I’m no criminal mastermind. And I don’t have any machine guns or gang members to help or anything like that. I’d also seen a video about bank robberies that showed how the banks position buttons underneath their counters that instantly call the police and that the bank employees will sneak a bottle, a bomb, really, hidden in the moneybag, and the bottle will explode when it exits the bank, leaving the robber and money splattered in a crazy, Carrie, horror movie type mess of red paint that takes days to wash off.

No thank you. I’ll give that a pass.

Then I thought of robbing an ATM. They’re everywhere, right? Why not just walk up to an ATM with a baseball bat or a hammer and smash it open?

I looked into that one too. The ATM machines are built with super-tough materials, like a black box in a plane, and are nearly impossible to open, simply just bashing them.

But robbing a jewelry store ... I saw a couple videos about that, including a few where the perps easily escaped ... Hmmm ... A jewelry store, the thought got my mind spinning ... A jewelry store ... Just like in the videos ... Me ... Running in there ... Just like those masked men did ... Me ... Smashing open a display case, snatching a handful of necklaces, rings, running off ... That didn’t seem too hard. I figured I’m strong enough to do that ... Maybe...

So I planned it. I picked out a jewelry store in the next town over. I studied the Google Maps, satellite street views, and I planned my escape route.

The hardest part was finding the right weapon. I really wanted to buy a gun. There is nothing cooler and badder than a girl with a gun, right? Even a fat girl like me could kick ass with a gun ... But, sadly, I didn’t have the cash for a gun. Which was a conundrum in that I didn’t have the money to buy a gun, and that, of course, was the whole reason I was hatching the plan to rob a jewelry store in the first place. Ugh...

This being the case, I settled on a knife. But we only have kitchen knives and steak knives and those are too big and sharp to easily carry and conceal. Then I got an idea. I’d seen a documentary about 9/11, and it’d said how the hijackers used box cutters to seize control of the planes. Jeez, if a box cutter could be used to hijack a plane, it could easily be used to rob a store. And it’s also easy to carry.

That was it. I’d go in there, wearing a surgical mask, to cover my face, and then I’d break out the box cutter, brandish it, let the staff know that I mean business. I’d make them raise their arms, like the police does to criminals, and then I’d reach in my backpack, whip out a hammer, and smash open a display case, swipe as much jewelry as I can stuff in my backpack, and run off, jump back on my scooter, and disappear into the blur of traffic.

In addition, what I thought would make my plan even better, was that I often cut my hair short. Since I’m a big girl, with short hair, and if I wore baggy clothes, they might think the suspect was a man. Then the cops would be searching for a man, and not me.