The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

I’ve always been a stickler for the rules. A firm believer in fair and balanced justice (and the real fair and balanced, not that depressingly ironic Fox News variety), I have always gone a bit overboard in enforcing the rules.

... and mocked years later on a blog.

While working at Hastings, a store that specializes in movies, music, books and video games, I found my goat constantly being got by the ever-present shoplifter.

From the obvious stuffing of merchandise under a coat to more subtle tricks such as switching price tags or returning books that had obviously been read, I considered every theft a personal affront onto me.

I made it my goal to catch at least one perp during each shift. I wasn’t always effective.

I apprehended my first crook as he tried to open a DVD case and shove the disk up his shirt. As I snuck up behind the kid, catching him red-handed, I found his attempts to lie amusing. Without an inch of sympathy, I walked him to the front counter where I planned to call the police. Unfortunately, we were short staffed that night and, in the excitement of having caught my first criminal, I didn’t think that the perp would try to escape as soon as I turned my back to make the phone call. Sure enough, the kid was out the door and down the street the first chance he got. He didn’t take the merchandise with him, though. It was a draw.

The second encounter with a shoplifter came when I went to use the restroom during my shift. The restrooms are always a hotbed for merchandise shrinkage. Specifically of porn. Hastings, unlike most other bookstores, has no problem selling pornographic magazines. During my time at the store, I found every kind of porno (straight, gay, fetish, redneck) shoved in the bathroom trashcan.

Men (and sometimes women), looking to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon, would pick out a pornographic magazine from the rack, sneak it into the bathroom where they would enjoy it before shoving it into a trashcan, the toilet’s tank or, worst of all, gently putting it back into its wrapper and placing it back on the rack.

Entering the restroom, the first thing I noticed was the sound of a plastic wrapper being taken off of a magazine. This sound was one I had become familiar with from living in a dorm room and remaining awake after the lights had gone out and my roommate thought I was asleep.

Sure enough, I saw a hand reach down to shove a wrapper behind the toilet.

“I hope you’re planning to buy that,” I said with my best impression of authority.

The kid stammered that he did not know what I was talking about. Not willing to argue with a man on the toilet, I told him that I would be waiting outside to make sure that he paid for the porno after his bathroom break.

Unfortunately, after leaving the bathroom, my attention was pulled to a problem at the front register. When I finally got a chance to look back at the restroom, I saw a kid sneaking towards the music section. He wasn’t going to get away that easily.

To be continued…