Dumb Crooks

In my life, B.G. (before grocery), I would have never thought about theft at a grocery store being an issue. Why would anyone need to steal food? If you're that hard up, go get food stamps- I'm sure you'd qualify. Anyway- some stories about dumb crooks to follow.



I've seen all sorts of theft. I've seen innocent theft, desperate theft, accidental theft, nasty theft, and dumb theft.

The innocent- When small children ask for candy, the parents say no, and they slip it in their pocket. Talk about a difficult situation there! I'm probably supposed to 'tattle' on the child but it's extremely an uncomfortable issue. "Excuse me sir, your child is a thief." (and a brat) I usually just give the child a stern 'you're in trouble' look while the parents aren't looking. That normally does it. I use to teach pre-school... I have the 'you're in trouble' look down.

The desperate- Empty or near empty miscellaneous items found around the store. I mean, when I see a box of tampons laying on a display of potato chips and only 1 tampon is missing... that is some desperate theft. I've seen a box of condoms, opened and missing only a couple from the box. Why not just take the whole box? If you're that desperate, it's probably a great idea for you to use condoms, though. You certainly don't need to reproduce.

The accidental- When customers come back in to the store to pay for something because it didn't show on their receipt that they paid for it. Which is great, leads me to believe there are still a few honest people left.

The nasty- Why do people cram grocery items in their clothes? Or worse, down their pants? If I even wanted to steal RAW meat, the last place I would store it would me down my pants. I guess the temperature on the grill kills most of the germs... but by the look of the thieves that do this, I wouldn't risk it. There is a woman who shops at my store that scoots around in a mart cart while she shops. Her method of stealing is shoving items underneath her butt while she's sitting on that cart. Not attractive to witness, especially because she usually wears triple XL tank tops with no bra and her saggy boobies hang out the armpit holes. The kind of side-boob action that NOBODY likes!

The dumb- This is my favorite crook story to tell, ever. On a normal summer afternoon, I was bagging groceries and walking around when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a man push out an entire overflowing buggy of items. I did a double take, stood there in shock for a few seconds... grabbed my male bagger and ran out the door (I wasn't going out there alone, people's crazy). We ran up the hill in the parking lot to catch him, as he is running too. He knows we are behind him, pulls up to a truck, hops in and leaves the buggy in the parking lot. All that work on his part for nothing. My co-worker and I pushed the buggy back into the store- feeling like the freakin' heroes of the day that we were. What was in the buggy, you ask? About $200-300 worth of meat department items, lots and lots of produce, 5-8 Digorno frozen pizzas, 5 cases of Bud Light (of course they couldn't get the cheap shit),  5 boxes of Franzia wine, and lots and lots of other misc. items. That thing was packed like a suit case! It definitely wasn't their first rodeo- they were professionals. If I described what he looked like, I would be describing half of the southern white male population. But I don't think I have seen him since...
Technically, once the product has left the store, I am not supposed to go after it (company policy). On the count of I could totally get shot, I reckon. But, I wasn't about to let a $500+ buggy slip right out the store like that! My district manager was visiting the store at that time, too! I wheeled the buggy up to my boss and the DM and said "I just retrieved this from a crook in the parking lot... I need a raise."

(and just for the record, I didn't get a raise)