I Am Not A Crook

I have mentioned many times over the summer blogs that we are (for all practical purposes) a single car family now.  As such, when I work from the office I do not have the possibility to drive anywhere on my lunch break.  If I do not bring my lunch with me then my options are limited to the 1 hour time window of my lunch break, the weather and my ability or desire to walk to a restaurant nearby.  The restaurants within the “walk zone” are…

• Panera Bread
• Rally’s
• Louie’s Coney Island
• Vending machines (technically not a restaurant I know but an often used option if the weather is not cooperative)

Other places I walk during my lunch hour include my favorite pawn shop (mentioned in many a blog) and the Kokomo Mall.  The mall is “in my way” when walking either to Panera or Rally’s.  Oftentimes I will walk through a store in the mall rather than walking around the entire mall.  If I am going from the pawn shop to Panera or Rally’s then the best store in the mall to walk through is Elder Beerman.

Yesterday I stopped by the pawn shop and picked up (2) DVDs and (5) CDs…

• Fat Albert (DVD)
• Rocky And Bullwinkle (DVD)
• Special Brew – A CD featuring remixes of artists like U2, Chemical Brothers, etc
• Heck On Wheels: Songs Suitable For In-Store Play – A CD featuring the “cleaner” (I am guessing) songs by groups like Ministry, Danzig, etc
• Teen Romance – An oldies CD featuring the songs Leader Of The Pack, My Boyfriend’s Back, etc
• Holiday In-Store Play Sampler ‘95 – A CD featuring artists like Michael Jackson, Tears For Fears, etc
• Ricky Martin – Featuring Livin La Vida Loca

In my defense, all of the CDs were $0.50 each and (further in my defense) I thought the daughter would like Ricky Martin.  Anyway, I was carrying these items in a plastic bag as I headed from the pawn shop to the Elder Beerman entrance.

As I walked into the west entrance of the store, an alarm went off.  Like most stores nowadays, there are theft prevention devices at all exits.  Something on my personage was causing the alarm to go off.  This happens often enough at the local Target as well so I am used to this happening.  I looked for the nearest employee for help on what to do.  The alarm stopped in a matter of seconds and no one seemed to be running toward me with weapons raised so I moved eastward to the exit that would lead me closer to Rally’s.  As I walked by the front entrance (not the exit I was going to use), the alarm went off again and again it was met by a phenomenal lack of in store response.

As I neared the east exit, I decided to find an employee so I could exit the store without being chased down for questioning.  In hindsight this might have been an unneeded exercise given the lackadaisical efforts that I had met thus far by the evidently non-existent theft prevention police.  However, I had a little time and it is better to be safe than sorry.  I could not locate anyone on the store floor so I got in line at the nearest register.  There were 2 lines and each appeared to have an older lady in the process of purchasing items (as I looked around the average age of the shoppers this time of day appeared to be in the lower 90’s).  I flipped a coin in my head and opted for the line closest to the exit.  Then I waited.

It turns out that the line that I did not choose had a lady returning some items.  I thought to myself that I had dodged a bullet in the waiting game especially after the lady then decided to repurchase of the returned items (she had a coupon) along with some additional items.  Also, she had 2 coupons that could not be used together and had the cashier do the math as to which coupon was the better to use for her items (as it turned out, both coupons [despite one being a $10 off and one being a 20% off] came to the same [to the penny] amount).  Now, I was able to see her entire check out process since my line also contained a lady performing multiple transactions which included (among other things) getting something out of layaway.  Ultimately it was about 10 minutes (I am guessing, time passes more slowly when near the elderly I think) before I was able to explain my situation to the cashier and ask for a way to exit the store.  They examined my bag and scanned it over their little device behind the counter.  Whatever that device does, it allowed me to exit the store without the alarm going off again and thus appearing like a crook.

In the future I think I will avoid that store all the same.  There are other stores that I can walk through or maybe I will just walk around the entire mall property for good measure.

Jon