Shoplifting at Shopko
It was summer, a long time ago, when all my little birds were still in the nest and the big daddy bird still lived there and was working on our house. My shopping cart was piled high with building and remodeling supplies. I was impatiently waiting for the young man in the red smock to tint my paint when I spotted small bags of red licorice hanging on hooks at the end of the aisle ~ the unassuming red twisty things that were about to change my life. I would wish later that I had never seen this candy.
I hummed a few bars of Garth Brook’s song, I Got Friends in Low Places, as I opened the bag of licorice bites and put a few pieces into my mouth. I grimaced when I realized how terrible it was. It was red, synthetic, play-pretend food. Sometimes I can compromise with generic items, but I guess not when it comes to licorice. I refused to waste the calories by swallowing even that one mouthful (remembering every diet book’s advice to make sure, if you’re going to cheat, that it’s really worthy of cheating). I inconspicuously spit it into a napkin that was in my pocket.
I dropped the leftover bag of candy into the cart, watching it bounce from side to side on the light bulbs, paintbrushes, coat hooks and small tools, until it rested on the bottom. I scanned my shopping list for forgotten items and glanced hurriedly over the contents of my cart as I whizzed through the store. My eyes perceived the candy but my brain didn’t recognize it as danger. I was thinking about the amount of money I had spent, the time I had taken to do my errands, the places my children needed to be that afternoon, and what I could fix for supper on such a hectic day. I was totally unconcerned about the candy.
I finished my shopping and hunted for the shortest line at the registers. Waiting in line doesn’t usually bother me like it does some people. It gives me a chance to peer through the end-stand tabloids and find out what’s happening in Hollywood, which is exactly what I did on that day.
As I put the last of my items on the counter to be scanned, I ignored the licorice resting on the wire grate of the cart. In a moment that almost wasn’t conscious, I decided not to pay for it because it was awful. I knew that I could buy it and then wait in line again at the service desk for a refund, so I just decided to skip this step and handle it right there.
In retelling this story, I amaze myself at my own stupidity and shortsightedness. I can’t even pretend to explain myself. I have no excuses. I should have had a premonition of the impending disaster that was soon to be upon me by what happened next, but, unbelievably, I did not.
I stood at the register and waited for the total as I wrote my check. The phone rang. The clerk answered the phone at the register and whispered for a moment, then hung up. She casually leaned over and peeked into the bottom of my cart. “Is that your candy?” she asked. I looked at it and justified my answer in my mind in a millimeter of a second. “Nope. That’s not mine,” I replied. That was one of my many mistakes that day.
I scooped up the bags in my arms and stopped at the pay phone by the exit door. “I’ll be home in a minute,” I promised my impatient daughter. “Make sure everybody’s ready to go when I drive in and we won’t be late.” I left the cart inside the store with the candy still in it as I hurried to my car.
The bags were heavy and the cans of paint hung clumsily from each of my arms as I scuttled through the parking lot. I felt a hand rest on my arm from behind me and I turned, smiling, expecting to see a friend or acquaintance. “Excuse me, Ma’am. I’m security and I need you to come back into the store with me.” My mind went blank and I looked around in a daze. Did I accidentally carry something out that wasn’t paid for? Was he mistaking me for someone else? Was my check bad? Was this a joke? Was I on Candid Camera?
The detective was in his late twenties and had ocean-colored eyes that were probably beautiful when he wasn’t scowling with disgust. I followed him into a small room adjacent to the service counter. I stood frozen as the door was closed behind me, numbly and mechanically surveying my surroundings. The room was a cool gray and windowless, like a cave. The store manager, two detectives with walkie-talkies in their hands and a woman with a deeply disappointed face sat around a small table. They were looking at me like I had just received the death sentence. My eyes moved slowly to a plastic bag that lay in the middle of the table that someone pointed to. Oh, oh. No way. This can’t be! What have I done? What is going on here? Just as criminal evidence is presented in court, the bag contained the proof of the crime ~ the licorice.
“Do you recognize this candy?” asked the detective who seized me in the parking lot.
I hesitated. “Yes.”
He sighed. “Why didn’t you pay for it after you ate some?”
Gulp. “It was terrible.”
“That’s no excuse!”
The disappointed woman recorded our conversation on a mini-recorder and wrote shorthand notes furiously. She pulled her glasses down on her nose occasionally to look at me with contempt.
The police were called. I was informed that after I was prosecuted in District Court, the information of my arrest and conviction would be printed in the newspaper for all to see. I would be asked to never return to the store again. I would be handcuffed and led in shame and disgrace through the store to the squad car, where I would be taken to the police department and “booked.” I went to pieces.
“I – I – I - I can’t believe this is happening! Please oh please! I just spent over $150.00!”
“What you just spent is not relevant!” snapped a detective. “You ate candy you didn’t pay for! Technically, that is stealing. The price is not important. Stealing is stealing is stealing!”
I begged for another chance. “And I couldn’t be sorrier! I just didn’t understand how seriously you would take it. I never thought about how you’d take it because I never thought. I just didn’t think anything about it!”
“We gave you a chance. When the phone rang and then the clerk asked you if that licorice was yours, weren’t you a little suspicious?” asked the store manager, with an expression on his face that he was talking to an idiot.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t! I never thought! I just never thought! I can’t explain what I was thinking because I really wasn’t thinking about anything except getting home. I never analyzed it. Well, I sort of did. It crossed my mind that I could pay for it and then get a refund, but I didn’t want to take the time when it would have just achieved the same end anyways,” I sobbed desperately. “If I have to go through this store in handcuffs like I just robbed a bank, I’ll die. I promise, I’ll die!”
The detectives glared at me. The store manager tapped his fingers impatiently on the table. The disappointed woman pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. I was cooked. I was a dead duck.
“I need to talk to someone! I have to think this out! There must be another way! If I had known the trouble this would cause, I would never, ever, ever have done it! Please! I’ll never be able to explain this to my kids. Oh, my kids (sob, sob)! My church friends (sob, sob)! My parents will be humiliated! I clean houses for people! I clean houses for doctors and they trust me and now I’ll lose my jobs and my reputation will be ruined!”
I blew my nose on the hem of my coat. Their faces remained expressionless, except for the woman’s. She looked at me as if to say, “I don’t like you. I don’t feel sorry for you. You’re getting what you deserve.”
I paced back and forth in the small room, ten steps each way, with my hands on the sides of my head in despair as I cried. “My nerves are just about shattered and this might push me right over the edge. I’ve been on Prozac for three months for my nerves, which I buy here, by the way. Now I’m really going to have a complete nervous breakdown and nobody cares!” I wailed.
My mind was malfunctioning. The time spent waiting for the arresting officer was going in psychedelic-drug slow motion, but I was thinking in hyper-speed. I had an idea. “What if I worked here for as long as you thought would be fair, for free, in exchange for you forgetting this ever happened today? I’m a hard worker and I know you won’t believe me, but I really am as honest as the day is long. I just don’t know what came over me today, but it will never happen again. I lost my mind. I went completely berserk. This was a one-time only, I promise. Please, oh please, what do you say?” There was no making a deal on that day. They didn’t even answer.
A man of imposing presence removed his police cap as he stepped into the room. He smiled weakly when we looked at each other, and I began to cry torrents of fresh, new tears as I recognized him. Officer Hoffman and I had daughters who were friends, and we knew each other casually from the places our girls went together. I was drowning in agony. The officer put a hand on each of my shoulders from behind and guided me gently toward the door, like you’d lead an old, disoriented loved one.
Someone said, “Sir?” He quickly replied, “I don’t think the handcuffs are necessary. She doesn’t look very dangerous to me. I don’t think she’s going to make a break for it,” he said as he winked.
The members of the interrogation squad were openly antagonized and disappointed by his refusal to handcuff me. Part of the punishment for shoplifting was the deliberate humiliation they wanted offenders to experience. I clung to Officer Hoffman through the store and to his squad car, as if he was my only friend in the world.
The ride to the station was intensely humiliating. I couldn’t have been more ashamed if he would have been bringing me in for murder. “Isn’t this some kind of weather?” this kind soul said, groping for nonchalance. I nodded and snorted. “I heard that Autumn and Crystal had a great time at the dance last week,” he continued. “Yup. Our little girls are sure growing up. Um, hmm. I was just telling my wife the other day that before you know it, we’ll be having boys calling and dates and broken hearts and all those girl things. Yup.”
He was the sweetest man I ever met. He talked about everything except what was going on. I made unattractive, guttural sounds in response to his light chatter, as I wiped my nose on my sleeve and contemplated my hopeless future.
The radio dispatcher who formally signed me in at the precinct was a girl I knew from high school. Patty Tallio, another acquaintance. Isn’t that the way my luck would go, I thought. Why, oh why couldn’t I have made this mistake in another town where nobody knew me? Patty was a real professional. To save face (my face, that is) we pretended we didn’t remember each other. As she filled out the required papers, she asked, “Cost of theft?” Officer Hoffman cleared his throat and changed positions uncomfortably. “Thirty nine cents,” He replied.
I almost lost control of my bladder. This was the most humiliating moment of my existence. If I HAD to go through this, at least it should have been for something worth the tears and embarrassment, like a car or diamonds or something. But candy? Thirty-nine cents worth of licorice? And crappy licorice at that! Hardly worth being arrested over.
I was fingerprinted and photographed from the front and side, just like they do on television. I think some things are instinctual, regardless of the situation. Photographs aren’t taken for no reason. Photographs are taken because someone looks at them. Oh dear! What if my mug shot was printed in the newspaper with the story, or hung on the wall of the post office? I couldn’t have that. I did the only logical thing I could do.
“Officer Hoffman, Sir, could you please hand me my purse for a moment? I’ve had enough embarrassment for a lifetime. I’d feel better about this if my picture didn’t reflect this disgraceful situation I’ve brought upon my myself. If you would be so kind as to allow me to comb my hair and put on my lipstick, I’d really appreciate that.”
He turned away from me and tried to stifle a laugh. I believe he also rolled his eyes. The ride home was the worst part. I had to explain this to four little faces that thought I was just about perfect.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear,” I began. “When Momma said never take anything that doesn’t belong to you, I meant never – ever- ever – ever take anything, and I mean anything that doesn’t belong to you. That’s the law, and I want to tell you just how serious it is,” I explained.
The children actually took the news better than I expected. They were righteously indignant that they had missed their afternoon adventures and that I had been disgraced. They were amused by the rituals involved in the arrest and how precisely it mirrored their favorite cop shows. They must have even glamorized it to their friends, as one little girl observed me closely several days later, before saying, “Terah said that you were arrested and went to prison! That is so cool, Mrs. Croschere!”
While the world slept, I spent that night writing a long letter to the head manager of the Shopko store. It began, “Dear Mr. Starr, my name is Theresa Croschere. I’ve been thinking about this letter for hours and have no idea what to say, so I’m just going to start talking. I have so many things to tell you that I already know this letter is going to be novel-length. I just need to ask you one thing. No matter what you decide to do regarding me, I just beg you to read my letter all the way through to the end before you make a decision. Please let me say what I have to say, no matter how long that takes. After that, it’s all up to you and I will accept your decision as final …”
I talked about who I was, what I believed in, what I preached to my children about honestly and obeying the rules, and about what a poor judgment I had made that day in his store.
“Technically,” I wrote, “my theft was not thirty nine cents. I ate approximately three pieces of the licorice bites. I technically didn’t even eat them. I spit them into a napkin. I left the rest of the bag in the cart, in the store. I swear I didn’t come into Shopko with the deliberate intention of stealing candy. If I wanted to steal candy, I would have taken it with me, and it would have been good candy, worth stealing. I'm not making excuses or trying to be funny, but I think sometimes you have to examine a person’s motives, not just their actions, and what is in their heart and mind when they do something, especially when it comes to something hurtful, stupid, or with serious consequences,” I went on to plead.
I also made a point of the amount of energy that was spent following me around the store and interrogating me, and all the probable items that walked out the door while everyone was focusing on me and my candy.
“Taking anything that doesn’t belong to me is stealing. And stealing is stealing is stealing,” I agreed with all my heart, “but there might be a point where it becomes absurd, and where the punishment just doesn’t fit the crime.” In my letter of 26 pages, I knew that the best defense I had was the fact that I hadn’t taken the candy out of the store. Thank God for that. I begged for his mercy.
Several days later Mr. Starr called me at home and informed me that I was the first and only person in twelve years whose shoplifting charges were dropped at Shopko. He had considered my letter and all the circumstances surrounding the event. “The store detective who observed and followed you is very, very angry about this,” Mr. Starr informed me. “He feels that you should get the same punishment everyone else has, regardless of the value of the theft. Actually, he is considering giving me his letter of resignation, but that’s another story.”
I told Mr. Starr that I had no words to express my gratitude. He said, “I’ll just accept your thanks and we’ll call it done. Please don’t write me a thank you letter because it will take me hours to read it.”
Years have passed. The store detective didn’t quit his job, but made it his new mission in life to follow me around the store every time I came in for many months. He hid behind shelves and ducked between rows of clothing in an attempt to prove to everyone that he was right about me. One day I had enough and I turned around quickly in the center aisle when I knew he was following me and shouted, “Look, enough is enough! I am not going to steal anything today, tomorrow or ever. I will let you search me if you promise to stop stalking me. I made a horrible mistake. I don’t know a lot of things that are going to happen to me in my lifetime, but I know what is never going to happen again, even by accident. I give you my word.” That was the end of the story of the detective and me.
This has been a deeply humbling experience for me. I am now very careful and conscientious of what I do while shopping. I have a new and serious respect for the laws of the land. I try to be understanding and forgiving with others because someone was understanding and forgiving with me. If I could go back and do it over again, of course it would be different! I don’t know what else to say. I was Forrest Gump. I was Dumb and Dumber. I was Clueless, long before it was cute to be clueless. I will make other mistakes until I’m 90, because I was never 90 before, but I will never make THAT mistake again!
When I use a public ladies’ room and read a sign on the wall that says Shoplifting is stealing! It’s not a prank, a joke or a thrill. It’s a crime. Even if it’s your first offense, you could be punished with more than $2000 in fines and five or more years in prison, plus a record that will haunt you for the rest of your life. We prosecute shoplifters! I BELIEVE! Amen.
Yours truly Tia
