I was once followed out of a grocery store by security when I was about 16-17 and stopped when I got to my car. The security guard said he thought I’d shoplifted some cosmetics and put them in my purse. In his defense, I had spent quite a long time hemming and hawing over in the cosmetics aisle, trying to decide if it was worth spending my meager allowance on something. I finally decided nothing jumped out at me enough to be worth getting, but in the process of looking I took several things off of their little hook/peg things and examined them. So I can see why they might have thought I slipped one into my purse. He asked to search my purse and I was young and naive and scared enough–not to mention innocent and so I knew he wouldn’t find anything–so I agreed. He went through my whole purse (a big one) right there on the hood of the car. He didn’t find anything and mumbled an apology and went back to the store, and I went on my way.
I have to come clean, though. I have shoplifted twice in my life. Both times when I was in high school and I regret it still. The first time I was with some friends at a KMart and at the urging of my friend Kym, I stole a pair of animal print mens’ bikini underwear to give to my boyfriend as kind of a joke. They weren’t expensive but we were too embarrassed to buy them. She stole a similar pair for her boyfriend. I was extremely nervous the whole rest of the night, even after we’d left the store.
The other time I had bought a used sewing machine from a flyer in a laundromat. It was missing the foot. I looked at a couple of stores but could not find a replacement for it. Now this is a cheap-ass little part that would probably cost 50cents to buy, had I found one for sale. This was in the 1980s, before such things as the internet and search engines and online retailers and ebay. I finally went to a Walmart, which at the time had a pretty good sewing department (but no feet for sale) and I found a machine of the same make as mine and took the foot off of the display model and pocketed it. I felt bad about that one, but rationalized it enough to myself that I got over it pretty quickly. If they ever got around to selling the floor display they probably had a way to get a new foot from the manufacturer for pennies. (And no, calling up the manufacturer never occurred to me at the time–I was a stupid kid!)
In those two cases I totally got away with it, but would have been surprised if, had I been spotted, they’d stopped me before I passed the checkout lanes. I have used my purse to hold items that I’m planning on buying and would have been annoyed at an accusation of shoplifting (though I would have understood if someone had come up and asked me if I planned to pay for those items.) The kind of thing I’m talking about is like this: When I shop, I keep my purse in the basket at the front of the cart. It’s big and open at the top. Say I’m buying something really small, like a bottle of fingernail polish or a stick of Chapstick. These things will easily roll through the openings on the cart and fall out. So what I’ll do is set them in the top of my purse. They’re still in plain sight, but they’re technically in my purse. They won’t fall out of the cart, though. When I get to the checkout I put them on the belt and pay for them.
I can understand in a Black Friday type situation where people are grabbing things out of other people’s hands and such… I can understand putting something temporarily in a coat pocket or tucking it into clothing in some way, or putting it in the top of a purse until safely at the checkout line. It WOULD be viewed suspiciously, but I’d give the person the chance to make good and pay before accusing them of stealing. (To answer the question in the title.) Also, I would never physically assault someone over shoplifting–that’s inappropriate and over the top unless the person started it by hitting first. Physical violence should be restricted to situations where a person is a danger to you or to others. But then, I don’t spank my kid, either, and am very anti-violence in almost every case, so I fully admit a bias.
Thanks for bringing that up. That phrase threw me as well but I wasn’t going to ask.
[hijack]
I do. All the time. Usually black socks with these black sandals (though mine are synthetic leather). I don’t think it’s very noticeable. The ZCoils are far more comfortable to walk in–less knee pain, for one thing–than any other shoes I own, so I wear them most of the time, until it gets too cold/snowy in the winter. But yes, sometimes I even wear gasp white socks with them. Mostly because I’m not going anywhere where I need to look fashionable and I don’t really care if people think my feet look funny. It’s the time of year when it’s too cold without socks, but I’m not yet willing to sacrifice the shock absorbency of my wonderful ZCoils. [/end hijack]
Sorry for the long post. Hope it wasn’t too tl;dr for too many people.
