Monday, February 14, 2005

Tips on Shoplifting Part 1

Nich, me and the kids went to the mall. Ate in the food court then went to a store that shall remain nameless. We get 2 shopping carts, one for each kid to sit in, the guard smiles at us as we go by. I'm always suspicious of security guards. I put the kid's diaper bag in my cart along with the styrofoam carton of mall food leftovers. We proceed to do our shopping, roving around for face cleanser. "Uh, do you need another toothbrush?""Can I get cookies?" "Hey, I need shades to replace the ones I broke". I want shades too. I lost my shades in Vegas when I went down in September. Probably left 'em in the rent a car or my dad kept them and lied to me. The styles suck in this store unless you wanna pay like $20 or $15. That may be cheap to some people, but I go through shades like nobody's business. Lenses crack, pop, frames break, bullet holes or yeah, they get lost. So I don't like to spend a lot on shades. I find a decent pair and throw it in my cart. We get to the cash register and throw everything on the conveyor belt. The kids are nuts as usual for candy or something. I pay for the items. Nich tries to get the bags. I zoom ahead to keep my kid distracted. I look at the receipt briefly to see how much I am charged for my shades. I've learned the hard way to always check the receipt before you leave the store or you'll be hating yourself if you have to drive back for a mispriced item. Anyways I can't find my shades on the receipt and I think to myself I don't remember putting it on the conveyor belt. My eyes dart down to the bottom of the cart for a brief second. Then my brain registers, I know what happened. The diaper bag fell on top of the shades, I didn't see them in the cart and they weren't scanned. We cart up to the guard at the store door and I figure I'd show him my receipt where he can catch the shades in the cart and we can inoccently say "oh, we forgot to put it in the scanner". No harm done. I'm sure it happens all the time, that's why he's there. I cart up the the guard, raise the recipt up to him with my hand, but he doesn't want to see my receipt and says I can go. I'm like alright free shades! Then we come up to the exit door and the shoplift detectors. I'm like, "oh crap, is it gonna beep?" We are in the no excuses range. We are dead meat! Really no time to think. Nich doesn't know whats going on and goes through. Sensors beep as the tip of my cart hits the sensor. I stop and turn around confused because I am. The guard runs over and says "was it your cart?" I say yeah, "Do you want to check the bag?", and I start to open it up and he goes no since my cart only has a diaper bag, he says it is probably a cell phone or something we are carrying. He sees the store bags are in Nich's cart that didn't beep and the guard lets us go through. As we leave the store we talk about where we parked the car and I whisper to Nich that my shades weren't on the receipt then I say they were under the diaper bag. "Let's get the car quick!" Sure I found a price discrepancy on the face cleanser compared to the price on the shelf but I'm not saying it justifies anything. I am not proud of keeping the shades but somehow I do wish I got the higher priced model.

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