Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Thieves in the grocery store

A while back, a German friend told the blogster about a teen being caught at the local store when he stole a buck's worth of candy, supposedly as a gift for his girlfriend.

This started a conversation about theft at grocery stores and department stores, and the friend told us a story from his school days. After school on the way home, the friend and a boy he knew from school ran into each other at the entrance of a grocery store.

I had like two dollars of pocket money burning a hole into my first ever wallet and told him I was going to buy candy. He said, I'll join you, I have some time before the bus leaves. We went in, I took a few minutes to make up my mind. Two dollars didn't get you very far. He was hanging out with me, then wandered off, and came back as I made my way to the cash register. I paid, he had nothing.
We left and continued to walk to the bus stop. After we had cleared the store and crossed the next street, he told me to stop for a second, set down his book bag, opened it and reached into his coat. It was fall or winter, he was wearing a good size winter coat. Methodically, he pulled items out of his pockets, chocolate bars, candy, even small cans of canned fruit, and transferred them into his book bag. I was stunned beyond belief. He was very proud of having stolen probably 20 bucks worth of items.

The episode came back to our minds last week when we overheard the store manager at our local grocery store talk to what was probably a district manager about theft at their branch. Produce and other goods worth 1700 Euros and change had been stolen last month.

So much for the quiet, uneventful small German town in the hills.

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