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Holiday frenzy made a shoplifter out of me

Contributed by: Barbara Neff on 12/23/2005

I have a habit of placing glasses on top of my head when not in use. I mean eyeglasses.  Not tea glasses. I figure stowing my reading glasses on top of my head when not in use is a better alternative to having them dangle from an ornamental chain around my neck, a fashion habit that screams MIDDLE AGE!  MIDDLE AGE!

 

Okay. So I was in a local dollar store a couple of days ago psyched to snatch up the best bargains in wrapping paper and ribbon.  Problem was I forgot to bring those dang reading glasses and, of course, the print on the product labels must be a number -2 font.  I always say manufacturers would be doing us Baby Boomers an incredible kindness by merely switching to a number 20 font on any and all labels.  Restaurant menus should be printed in number 20 font, too. But I digress.

 

What was I to do in the dollar store?  I had to be certain I was getting the most bows and the most square footage of wrapping paper for my dollars.  I looked around, not totally unwilling to ask a complete middle-aged stranger if I could borrow his or her reading glasses. None in sight.

 

Then I spied a rack of reading glasses. I could tell they were reading glasses because I was standing at least fifteen feet from the display and my distance vision remains, in stark contrast to my up-close vision, youthful.  Aha.  I darted over and grabbed a pair of 1.75+ and returned to the gargantuan boxes of paper and bows.

 

After selecting, with the assistance of my borrowed reading glasses, a few rolls of 80 square feet of paper and some twenty-to-the-pack bows, I continued with my shopping.  Oh, how I love to find Breck shampoo, huge bottles of  Arizona tea and Aqua Fresh toothpaste for one dollar per item!

 

Once my shopping cart was filled to the brim with one dollar items I had no idea I needed or wanted before entering the store, I joined a cattle drive to the check out to stand in line with all the other shameless bargain hunters.  Moooo.

 

The checker was a perky young girl, unnaturally cheerful in the face of a throng of penny pinchers.  In retrospect, I think she did look at me funny.

 

During the drive home I reached to the top of my head.  I also stash sunglasses there when not in use. My goal was to grab what felt like sunglasses because the glare off the snow was causing a crow's-feet-deepening squint. What I pulled off the top of my head instead was the dollar store reading glasses, tags and all.  In my haste to snatch up my holiday wrapping bargains I had accidentally kept the borrowed reading glasses.

 

Did anyone notice I paid for my merchandise then walked out the automatic door with a store tag hanging very near my forehead?  Are people just too polite or shy to confront even a bungling shoplifter like me?   Surely I was a spectacle.

 

I was reminded of the guy who inadvertently pocketed a pen that belonged to a Home Depot store and was confronted in the parking lot for shoplifting.  I think Home Depot even blacklisted him as an unwelcome shoplifter.  Gads.  That could have been me.

 

Next time I am in that store I fully intend to return the heisted item.  I will grovel, explain and, in the end, probably come off as a repentant weird-o to those in charge. At least maybe they won’t press charges or blacklist me if I voluntarily return the item. 

 

And that perky cashier.  I wish she had told me the store tag dangling near my face made me a shoplifter, albeit not a very smart one.



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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Barbara Neff

Castle Rock , CO

Barbara Neff has posted 89 stories and 249 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Barbara Neff 's average story rating is 4.86.
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