581 Grand Theft, Dairy

581 Grand Theft, Dairy


It wasn't intentional. It really really was an accident. But shoplifting is shoplifting.

In the supermarket parking lot, lifting the bags of groceries into the trunk of the car, there it was.

A package of cheese.

And while not the exotically and sometimes criminally expensive gourmet stuff, the stealing of which might be considered grand theft dairy, not one of the cheapies, either.

How did this happen? How did a scrupulously honest long time resident of the neighborhood whose lawyer surely would ask for no bail because of deep ties to the community, manage to sneak out an item priced at something between seven and eight dollars?

Well... how about blaming those deep ties to the community, which in this case meant chatting with the cashier who is a near neighbor, with neither of us paying close enough attention to the checkout to notice the small, flat package sitting in the cart.

What to do.

There were alternatives.

Return the thing.

Take a chance and just make off with it? That's not right.

Go back and stand on line again for half an hour to pay for it? That's unbearable.

Buy a postal money order and send it to the store's headquarters anonymously?

Ah, but where IS the main office? It could be in East Islip, New York, or Montvale, New Jersey... or Melheim, Germany... in which case we'd have to buy the money order in euros.

How about donating the package to a food kitchen. A noble thought, relative to the other thoughts that you are hearing. But that doesn't answer the ethical dilemma which, by the time you read or hear this, is more than a week old.

The guilt is overwhelming.

How can a thief like this show his face back at the store?

Who or what to blame!

The lateness of the hour... the laxity of the staff?

Sure the cashier should have eyed the cart.

But it was near closing time and very busy.

No, really. It was just carelessness.

The nightmares begin: guilty with an explanation, your honor.

Wait, how about this for a solution. After all, what they don't know won't hurt them.

Next time before heading for the market, slip the loot from the heist into a shopping bag.... sneak it into the store... and when checking out, pay for it.

Unless, of course, store security discovers the theft and views the checkout videotape first.

In which case you shall hear the next broadcast version of these reports over a cell phone...
meaning a pay phone in a real cell.



Shrapnel:

--Semi reformed smokers unite! Slam your window shut, making it loud as possible. Maybe that'll teach the yutz next door when he smokes his two packs a day, others dislike the stink.

--There's going to be a federal summit on distracted driving. So, attendees, get behind the wheel, start the trip, put on your makeup, turn on the radio, and if you can't make a phone call, at least text someone. And please do it in that order.

--You gotta love the Iranian National Travel Agency. So welcoming are they that when you visit, they'll provide you with free accommodations. Tehran has more five star prisons than anywhere else in the middle east.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®
©WJR 2009