It's not often a story involving petty theft ends happily, but after a sequence of unfortunate events, one thief felt so guilty that they went and atoned for their sins.
The nature of the crime was swiping some ketchup bottles from a casual dining restaurant in New Jersey.
While it's arguably not up there with grand theft auto, it's still stealing - and still putting someone out of pocket (in this case, owner Maria DeLeo).
Maria was recently closing up her restaurant for the day when she discovered a note outside their door, as well as two bottles of tomato sauce and receipts.
She posted the note to Facebook , which read:
"A few weeks ago, I had taken one of your ketchup bottles off the table because for some odd reason I thought it'd be 'risky'.
"I am as square as they come and this is the worst thing I've done," the anonymous thief laments.
"Well, a few hours [after] I did it someone crashed into my car, and since then, my karma, luck, and life have been s**t.
"I hope returning two new bottles will restore some [luck] for me, and I can stop carrying around this guilt."
While none of the restaurant employees noticed the missing bottles, restaurant manager Maria was nonetheless touched by the gesture - and she even added that she would definitely consider hiring the culprit.
She added: "If you do something like that, you're not an awful person. You're an honest person."
