'Book Week accidentally drove me to petty crime.'

Hi, parents and caregivers! We're at the tail end of Book Week 2024, so I thought I'd check in and see how we're all doing. Is everyone okay?

Me? Oh, I've had better weeks. Today was the first time I left the house after being accused of shoplifting on Monday, but thanks for asking.

You see, this year, I thought I'd nailed the formula for Book Week by matching what we already had in our dress-up box to a book. Easy peasy! Low labour, big reward. 

My five-year-old daughter has a glorious galah costume, so I planned to source a book — any book — with a bird in it. How hard could it be? 

After checking our books at home, we didn't have any featuring a bird character. "Not to worry," I thought — "I'll pop into the local library."

Well, that, too, was extremely underwhelming, and nothing matched the brief.

With 24 hours to go until my daughter's big moment at daycare, I used my lunch break on Monday to nip down to my beloved favourite local newsagent, which is well known for its comprehensive book supply. Surely, they'd have something.

Watch: The star signs in a time of crisis. Post continues below.

I was patting myself on the back because the newsagent also stocks my go-to kids' birthday present at the moment — $8 dinosaur eggs, which you put in water and watch them hatch. Massive crowd-pleasers! I've got two little boys' parties coming up, and I knew they'd love them. So off I trotted to get the goods while congratulating myself for organising birthday presents ahead of time — a rare moment for me.

Unfortunately, the dino eggs are quite cumbersome and tricky to carry, so I popped them in my wicker bag to have my hands free to rifle through the books in search of a bird-related character. Hell, by this point, even just a page with a bloody bird on it would've been a win. I was desperate. I was panicked. I was a multitasking hot mess.

I searched through every nook and cranny of the book section, flicking through the pages like a ravenous vulture. No luck.

"Managed to get those dino eggs! But I can't find any bird books. Can you pop to the shops in your lunch break and check at Big W?" I texted my husband, not knowing that this exact message would save my bacon imminently.

Suddenly I caught sight of another wall of books I hadn't yet scoured. I walked over, rifled through every item, and when I was just about to give up... thar she blows! The A-Z of Australian Animals book. I opened up the 'G' page, and lo-and-behold, there was a goddamn galah! 

Book Week has been saved! 

I was giddy with joy, so happy that I filmed a little video of the blessed galah page and sent it to my husband. "Call off the search! Look what I found."

'Ping' went my phone.

An important work email I'd been waiting for had just landed in my inbox. I read it several times and started crafting a reply, before realising the time. 

S**t, I have so much work to do this afternoon, and will I have time to cook dinner before pickup?

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the mental load soup that was swimming around in my chaotic mind as I waltzed up to the counter, brazenly put my bag in front of the cashier's face, and proceeded to pay for the $20 book in my hand, with tap-and-go on my phone in the other hand, completely forgetting about the two $8 dinosaur eggs I'd put in my handbag with the full intention of buying them a mere 15 minutes ago.

I skipped out of the shop — a beloved place, which I frequent with my daughters every week. It is where I purchase kids' birthday presents, gifts for new mums, care packages for sick friends, books for me and my girls, and other last-minute items. 

As I got to the door, I was stopped by a staff member. 

"Can I please check your bag, ma'am?"

Weird, that's never happened to me here before, I think, but not to worry. "Of course you can!" I replied cheerily.

I opened my bag, and the second my eyes landed on the dino eggs nestled inside, my stomach dropped. I felt physically ill. 

Deep breaths. Once they hear me out, they'll understand my honest mistake. I am a loyal customer who has shopped here for years, they'll understand.

Before I could even string a sentence together, the six-foot-tall owner swooped in on me (I am about five foot nada), looked down and exclaimed, "It's store protocol to call the police whenever there is a shoplifting incident."

As the adrenaline coursed through my body, I realised how shocking this seemed from his perspective. A not-particularly-smart person with no common sense or strategic nous shoplifted in plain sight! 

If I were to shoplift, I'd do it so much better than that. Firstly, I wouldn't use a wicker-style bag with literal holes in it. Not a very smart choice for a big day out of shoplifting! And I'd steal the easy-to-hide and more expensive $18.99 book over the cumbersome-but-cheap eggs. And I'd certainly not text live updates of the items I planned to steal to my husband. 

I've yet to read the Shoplifting 101 handbook, but all of these actions seem completely idiotic, rookie errors for someone who wants to steal.

As I shakily tried to explain all of this to the very, very tall man in his 60s, he told me that everything I'd done in the past 15 minutes was classic shoplifting behaviour. 

Oh my god, he's going to call the police! I'm going to become a Betoota Advocate headline: "Local Mother Gets Caught Stealing $8 Dinosaur Eggs. Blames Frazzled Mum-Brain."

"Honestly, it's just a frazzled mum-brain moment! Haven't you ever been spinning a million plates at once and dropped the ball… Or, in this case, two dinosaur eggs into your bag?" I begged — and each time I tried to plead my case, I swear he would grow a foot taller.

Of course, he replied that he's never done such a thing before, telling me once again that it's store protocol to call the police.

By this point, it'd turned into a full-on brouhaha. He was typecasting me as a hysterical kleptomaniac, as customers and staff — my fellow community members! — watched on. It was the single most humiliating moment of my life.

"BOOK WEEK. I BLAME BOOK WEEK. I GOT SIDE-TRACKED OVER THE GALAH BOOK, AND THEN I GOT A WORK EMAIL," I screamed before showing him the texts to my husband in another pathetic bid to try not to get arrested.

Finally, he agreed to put me on their 'watch list', and thank God for modern technology, because my mugshot was not plastered on the shop wall. Instead, facial recognition technology will alert the staff whenever I walk into their shop now. 

Very happy with this outcome, I told him we could get it sorted right away. I was, after all, in the middle of my lunch break and on deadline.

"You didn't look like you were on deadline when you were walking around the shop. Do you really have any work to do? You seem a little too willing to be on our watch list. I might have to call the police after all because you're very enthusiastic about it," he taunted.

Anything I say, he manipulated and threw back in my face to prove my so-called guilt. He clearly decided that I'm a professional shoplifter. Where is a dark cave I can crawl into and hide in for the rest of my life?

He finally escorted me to the back of the shop, away from the crowd that had now formed, and tears began to stream down my face as I called my husband. I just needed to hear a familiar voice to tell me it would all be okay. 

"We'll be laughing about this in a few days," he reassured me.

I gave the man all my details to be put on the watch list, and he still seemed unconvinced — so much so that he didn't believe I'd given him the correct phone number and made me wait while he called it to see check that it would ring. The shame spiral continued.

I was then marched back up to the counter to purchase the damn eggs, and the shop assistant whispered, "I believe you."

While I am already seeing the humour in this and know I'll giggle one day when I tell my oldest daughter that I almost got arrested trying to organise her bloody Book Week costume, the humiliation still stings.

I'd be lying if I said the whole experience didn't rattle me. To have someone dismiss the mental load and not believe me shook me up. The adrenaline hangover the next day was real. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus and was too anxious to leave the house.

In 2024, parents are spinning approximately a million and one plates, and brain farts are a common occurrence for many mums and dads. The mental load is real and heavy — SO very heavy that it needs to be carried in our bags with holes in it sometimes — and we're all just doing our best.

I shared my story on social media and was inundated with mothers who understood what had happened. "We're all running on empty and feel ya girl. Thanks for posting — we are all doing things like this," wrote one mum. 

"Are you KIDDING me? We're all accidentally forgetting our own version of the dinosaur egg," added another. 

"I do s**t like this all the time. Mum brain overload should def be an excusable offence," consoled another mate. 

It’s nice to know I'm not alone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Book Week Grinch. I just think the whole thing has gotten a bit cooked and feels like an assignment for the parents. Running around spending money on last-minute books and costumes we’ll never use again ain't it.

Let's get this event back to its roots: books! Beautiful books. I adore books, and like many parents, it's one of my favourite ways to spend time with my kids. But somewhere along the way, Book Week became ~BOOK WEEK~, and we're so very tired. Between Crazy Hair Day, the Easter Hat Parade, Harmony Day, Pyjama Day, and every other lovely, community-building initiative in between, there's a bit on. I'm not saying let's cancel everything, forever, and we never come together as a community. Absolutely not. I love seeing the joy and fun these kinds of days bring to everyone. But I think we need to give ourselves permission to do some of them very crappily. I've already saved this year's Easter bonnet for next year's parade.

And after this week's shoplifting scandal, I've stepped back and taken a deep breath, and have a few notes for the Book Week overloads, if you'd like to hear this petty thief exhausted mum out:

• Can we please rebrand it as Book DAY? A single day where the kiddos can dress up if they want but everyone brings in their fave book?

• Another controversial pitch: let's introduce it in primary school, instead of pre-school age. Kids under five honestly don't give two hoots about it. My kids dress up for daycare every other Tuesday. We don't need Book Week for them to rock their fancy dress.

• Finally, my favourite way to celebrate Book Week is through reading. I love going into daycare and reading books to the class. I'll happily do this every single year.

Anyway, I'm off to crawl into that dark hole now. I'm still too sheepish to return to the shop. But I'll be back… just not for any future Book Week supplies. 

Next year, we'll be opting out because not all heroes need to wear galah costumes.

Feature Image: Supplied.