Inna Minnit didn’t accuse you, personally, of stealing; (s)he just said that some people do so. If you’re walking around the store eating, or letting your kids eat, something you’ve picked up but haven’t paid for yet, nobody else knows whether you’re planning to (and will remember to, and be able to) pay for it when you get to the checkout. So you’re putting the store employees who see you do it in an awkward position—which, to me, seems like a good enough reason not to do it.
Before I buy your grapes, I’m going to sample one. When I do it, it’s not stealing. I’m not going to buy US$3.00 worth of grapes, get them home, and discover they taste like shit. If I have no interest in buying your grapes, I’m not even coming close to them.
I view a significant difference between asking to sample vs. assuming it’s OK. Now, if you’re a regular patron of a store where you are absolutely certain the proprietor is OK that’s fine. You’re right, just about every deli, fruit stand, cheesemonger, and other purveyor of food will be happy to offer samples when asked because it helps clinch a sale.
The thing is, it wouldn’t occur to me to sample without asking first. It just seems like the correct/polite/ethical thing to do.
Yes, but we’re talking about a grape here. I’ve accidentally dropped grapes on the ground before, and never felt the need to apologize or pay for it. The same wouldn’t be true of other things.
I’m confused by all this talk of shitty grapes. I’ve never had a shitty grape except for one that was brown and wrinkly. In fact, I’ve always thought that grapes vary less in quality than any other fruit, especially ones like apples, which can be dry and mealy, or strawberries, which can be bland and tasteless. Maybe that’s one reason that I never considered grapes-sampling to be any less than theft—I didn’t see any good reason for it.
Agreed, Broomstick. Your mention of politeness makes me think about the etiquette of dining out with a good friend or family member. Maybe they ordered something that you are intrigued by and want to try a taste of. With my good friends and family, I would not hesitate to ask if I can try a bite and offer to reciprocate with my dish. But I would never dream of just jabbing my fork into their plate without asking.
<ahem> Mods, I rarely lodge complaints but I do not appreciate being accused of “crappy parenting”, which anyone who is a parent knows is about the most hurtful/enraging insult one can level. I know myself to be one of the most thoughtfully engaged, firm, and fair parents possible, and I will not stand for these accusations to the contrary.
I noted that I feel sheepish about this but consider it the least worst option.
However, I would like to know how this is different from anything else in my cart. No one knows I’m going to pay for any of that, either, until I bring it up to the cashier and pay for it. Now, you might say that the sealed, nonperishable type items in my cart can just be put back if I were to leave the store without getting them rung up. But what about the meat or deli items I got wrapped into brown paper with a sticker and barcode on them? I did not yet pay for them, but I doubt they can be put back either. So that seems to me to be basically in the same intermediate status as an open package of granola bars. As long as I do not take the package out of the cart and set it somewhere, I have not stolen anything.
ETA:
Alan Smithee, I agree. I don’t know where all of these terrible grapes are being sold. I have lived in various parts of the country and have never encountered them myself.
PunditLisa, doing something by accident is different from doing it on purpose. Once my 18 month old son grabbed an apple from the bag we had filled and took a bite of it. Of course, he was too young to know any better; but we went up to an employee and explained what happened and apologised and offered to pay for a similar size or larger apple and then exchange it for the one with the bite out of it. They just said not to worry about it; but we were very apologetic.
I’m with Alan Smithee. I don’t notice much, if any, variation among bunches of grapes. There seems to be a lot more variation within a bunch of grapes than between two separate bunches.
Unless the store owner(s) make it clear that sampling grapes is OK, I would never do so, and I don’t think anyone else should either. If they do make it clear that it’s OK, then sample as you please. Otherwise it really is stealing - albeit of a trivial magnitude.
Would you have done so it he’d accidentally eaten a grape?
That is my point.
I would have found an employee and tried to rectify it, yes.
You kidding? These babies are custom-fit.
Just a nitpick–apples are sold by the pound around here. Avocados are sold by unit, but most produce is sold by weight in my experience. Just tradition, I guess?
Does it count if you had to do it as part of a gang initiation and didn’t actually want to?
It’s theft. That is not an opinion. You took another’s property without paying. Our theft statutes do not have a lower limit on monetary value. The value is used for grading of the infraction. However if one of our stores wanted to prosecute for one grape I would not be happy. They should worry about those that are walking out with 100s of dollars worth of baby formula. We had an officer working security at a supermarket who arrested someone for eating a plum. We all thought he was an asshole.
I am not going to eat unwashed produce. That’s just gross.
That’s pretty much why I don’t do it, not because I have any moral dilemma with taking a goddamn grape.
I would like to join this gang.
So the best part of this thread, by far, is SlackerInc claiming if he found his 18 month old took a single grape and ate it in the store, he would find a store employee in order to rectify the situation instead of just getting the fuck over it. He would go to the cashier and say “My baby ate a grape. Please adjust my bill as necessary.”
It’s total theft and those who do it should be ashamed of themselves. That’s something that people who shop at Walmart would do.
Watch your back, the jump-in noogie will occur where you least expect it.
I have never done it, and have no opinion on whether it’s theft. But from the other reactions, I’m clearly not the only one who thinks it’s gross. Who knows whose fingers have been on that grape right before you showed up? I’ll ‘sample’ a grape once I can take a bunch home, put it in a colander, and wash it properly.
Right, including a good spray with vinegar.
It’s odd that people are trying to make up their own minds about what it means when they take someone else’s property without paying for it. I would expect the store, who owns the grapes, would be the one to decide whether it’s OK to sample their grapes or not. In the absence of explicit permission from the store, I’m at a loss to understand how anyone can consider it anything other than petty theft.
Given that many grocery store customers don’t seem to mind trundling a mile away from the store before abandoning their carts - despite signs insisting that carts are not supposed to go beyond the parking lot - I guess I should not have been surprised.
Whole Foods has a policy that you can sample anything in the store - though they expect you to ask. Usually for things like this they’d just open the whole pack and put out samples for everyone. Anything.
I always eat a grape before buying. I don’t consider it stealing if the property owner doesn’t - and the fact that samples are freely given is an indicator the store doesn’t consider it stealing.