Shoplifting

I shoplifted for the first time today.

It was surprisingly easier than one might imagine. Stores always try to intimidate you with sensors and cameras and store associates walking around like suspicious police officers trying to catch you red handed, but shoplifting really isn't that difficult after all.

As a matter of fact, it is SO easy that I didn't even do it on purpose.

Rex and I were doing some grocery shopping yesterday, and Meijer was a madhouse due to all of the back-to-schoolers stocking up on last minute random crap that they are probably going to lose in a week anyway. We grabbed an advertisement to see what was on sale, and after looking through it I tossed it into our cart. We proceeded with our shopping, and we tried to go as quickly as possible so we could get out of there.

When we finished checking out, we walked out to the car and unloaded the groceries. Rex offered to take back the cart, and I said okay. He came back and handed me two notebooks, saying "Here - you left these under the Meijer ad." I froze, quickly scanning the area to see if anybody was chasing after me or if police cars were about to come screeching around the corner. I looked up at Rex and said, "Uhhh...I didn't pay for those...I must have forgotten they were under the ad." He asked how much they were, and I replied ten cents each (what a great sale, huh?). We figured Meijer probably wouldn't miss twenty cents in the grand scheme of things, and we decided to just go home.

As we started to pull away from our crime scene of a parking space, I started second guessing. "Rex, I can't just TAKE the notebooks. It's stealing! I am a criminal! They will come after me! Or, even if they don't, I will just be a REAL SHOPLIFTER for life! I can't handle this!!!" He joked, "Yeah, and you would probably fail the classes that you used those notebooks for, because they are stolen goods and you cannot succeed when you are a thief." Exactly. So I made him turn around so I could go pay for the notebooks. We got back to the door, and he handed them to me. He reminded me to take some money to pay for them, and I grabbed a quarter off of the floor of my car. I walked in, feeling like I was making the number one mistake of any criminal: returning to the scene of the crime. The greeter said something along the lines of "Hi," but I know they KNEW. They had this look in their eye...oh yes, THEY KNEW. I sheepishly sidled over to the self checkout, too embarrassed to admit what had happened to an actual store employee. I paid my twenty cents (twenty one cents with tax) in the least expensive self checkout transaction ever. Then I confidently strolled out of the store with my name cleared and my notebooks legitimized.

And that, my friends, is my shoplifting story. I live on the EDGE.