So, I did another “action alley” cleanup at Wally World, and once again, I found many Red Bull cans and assorted soda bottles around the store that had been picked up and consumed in the store without having been paid for (no, they were not purchased in the vending machines and brought in. We mark the UPC codes on those so they won’t be mistaken for claims). I also frequently find boxes of snack cakes and bags of chips that have been opened, one or two cakes consumes, then the rest of the box abandoned somewhere in the store, usually at the checkout lane.
OK, look, I realize this is the desert and you get thirsty while you’re shopping and need liquid refreshment. That is fine. Please bring the bottle or can to the checkout lane and pay for it. I also realize that you may get hungry while waiting in the long checkout lines (we are desparately understaffed on swing shift, especially on weekends), and may want to open that package of snack cakes and eat one (or give one to your kids). That is fine. Pay for it.
I realize that many of you are Fundamentalist Protestants and biblical literalists who have read that passage in the Old Testament that says that if you’re walking in a field in Israel two to three thousand years ago and you pick some grain off the stalk and eat it on the spot, it isn’t stealing, as long as you don’t take any home with you.
This is not a field in ancient Israel, this is not grain that was planted from the excess of last year’s crop. This is Wal-Mart. The company had to pay for those sodas and snack cakes. Wal-Mart has probably the lowest prices in town, unless you want to go to one of those co-ops where you may not find what you need from week to week, or to some discount market where you may find food that is past the expiration date and the produce is already half-rotten when they put it on the shelves. That box of snack cakes is only a dollar or two.
It’s stealing any way you look at it. Or I guess you would say it’s shoplifting. I’m not surprised at all that it goes on. It happens in the grocery stores too, but they are usually smaller than Wal-Mart and it’s easier to catch people doing it.
Sure, when my son was young he would be hungry by the time we got to the grocery store, but I would always find something that I could pay for after it was opened, not an apple or fruit that needs to be weighed. And I paid for it along with all the rest of my purchases.
Some people are just scum and that’s all they’ll ever be. They rip-off anyone they can.
No man, see, they aren’t stealing. Rather, they are putting one over on the man, obtaining unpaid for items, and thus doing their part to hurt the monopolistic corporate penis culture. You have just bought the big lie, man.
These are the same people that shoplift from garage sales, aren’t they? The soda costs what, a dollar? The snack cakes are probably the same. Just pay it!
Oops, sorry. Bible’s proven me wrong, and it is the word of God. Forgive me, Jesus!
Well, I haven’t actually caught any of them in the act so I haven’t had the opportunity to ask them to explain their actions, but human beings being what they are, they probably would.
But it’s really just speculation on my part. The Bible has been used to justify far worse…
Thea, if it’s any consolation, my mother saw a little kid eating a Hershey bar in line in front of her at the grocery store, and made his mother pay for it…once it became obvious that neither the cashier nor his mother had any intention of “noticing” his chocolate-covered face.
So she picked up the discarded wrapper and handed it to the cashier right when the cashier announced the mother’s non-Hershey-bar total.
His mother was furious, the kid was screaming and crying, and the cashier looked supremely uncomfortable.
But the Hershey bar was indeed paid for.
And my mother came home ranting and raving about what our society is coming to when the candy-aisle is a free-for-all.
Oh, and I have a question for you; what do you do when you see customers walking around eating and drinking products it’s obvious they haven’t paid for? I saw a family of four at Target, right in front of the registers, shooting the breeze and eating a bag of Fritos with bean dip out of their shopping cart…and while I would assume you can’t say anything until it’s evident they’re paying for other stuff and the food “remains” aren’t included, does anyone keep an eye on them? Or is this written off as “acceptable loss” or “shrinkage” or whatever, and included in the price for these items as a whole?
I ask b/c I used to work for a major craft chain store, and Mr. Levins interned as a manager at Wal-Mart in college, and from what he says and what I’ve seen, most managers would rather pay for the food themselves than piss off a customer and risk that call to the corporate office.
So does this kind of thing just get shrugged off/ignored?
You really can’t say anything-because you’re assuming that they won’t say to the cashier-“Here, I ate this” or claim to have brought it in from outside.
I also recall working in a grocery store, some parents giving their kids bananas and cookies from the bulk cookie bin-both of which had to be weighed.
sigh
Then they would look at you and say, “Well, just charge me for one.”
And then my manager would get pissed. Sometimes at me.
Audrey Levins, good for your mother. We need more people like her. What a fuckface the child’s mother was, though, for getting furious when her child had been caught.
I got in trouble once in kind of the opposite situation of the OP. I was 16 and the boyfriend and I were at a small grocery store picking up food for my little sister’s birthday party. I was famished after spending a day at the beach on an empty stomach, so I grabbed a package of Ho-Ho’s and ate them over the duration of our shopping trip. When we got to the register, I mentioned to the cashier that I had eaten a package of Ho-Hos, showed her the wrapper, and asked her to include it in my purchases. She looked at me with an evil eye.
“I can’t ring this up,” said she. “You ate it without paying for it first. That’s stealing.”
I told her that I had been very hungry, and I intended to pay for it now, along with all of my other purchases. She informed me that this was unacceptable, and she would have to call the manager over. The manager came over, heard both sides of the story, and after much hemming and hawing decided to let me get away with no theft charges this time. :rolleyes: I thought it was pretty stupid to make such a big deal over a teenager actually WANTING to pay for something, as opposed to just eating and not paying for it like most of my friends did.
It also amazes me that parents will feed their kids stuff, not pay for it, and then tell the kids that lying and stealing are wrong!!! Hello?!?! We must teach by example! At the market, I will often pick up, say, a box of animal cookies, for my three-year-old daughter, and let her eat them as we shop. Then, I check the product box along with my other groceries. I do, however, have a hell of a time when I buy bananas. She loves bananas! Just try to explain to a 3-year-old why it’s okay to have cookies before they’re paid for, but not a banana!
Once, in a small grocery store, I got a little bottle of water for my youngest, opened it, put it in her sippy cup and put the empty bottle in the shopping cart. When paying for it, the cashier said, “Umm, did you know this was empty?” Well, yeah, I really did.
I’ve had a similar problem with things that needed to be weighed, the kids I was babysitting just did not understand either. My solution was to get them each a banana (or apple) go pay for them first, explain that we were going to shop more, and keep the receipt. It worked ok that way.
Um, at the risk of sounding like Grampa Simpson, what the heck is up with you kids these days? Don’t you know it’s best to eat (or feed the yungins) before you go to the grocery? I swear, everyone wants instant gratification. Must be that darn innernet or somesuch. Sheesh!
