We talk about stealing all the time. Stealing somebody's thunder. Stealing home. Essentially stealing a win from a loss.
It's not literal stealing.
You didn't commit a crime. The crime was of complacency, of hubris. The tortoise steals the race from the hare. No other animals were needed.
Elections and sporting events are stolen all the time. The ref WASN'T blind. The linesperson wasn't in the pocket of Uruguay.
In business we lose custom all the time. Right now hundreds of thousands of small businesses are losing sales because the government closed them but left supermarkets and Amazon happily trading. They are making huge profits - and in the context of supermarkets - getting huge rates relief and funnelling it as bonuses to their shareholders.
Bonuses. To shareholders. In a pandemic. While claiming government assistance. Let that sink in.
This feels like stealing too. But its not.
Life is full of disappointment. I like to think the hare and the tortoise went for a pint afterwards and joked about it. Like all those boardgames I won first time out and never played again because I didn't want to break my winning streak, I doubt the tortoise was up for a rematch.
But here's what the hare didn't do. He didn't go on fucking twitter and lay the ground for armed insurrection against the tortocracy.