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Tue 28 Jun, 2005 11:25 am
Do you consider eating and not paying for an item in the grocery store as stealing? On a local radio station this morning, they called a woman that had done this and claimed to be the store manager. Apparently this woman opened a box of goldfish crackers and fed them to her two year old while she shopped. When he finished eating the crackers she tossed them out of the carriage in the dog food aisle. She left without paying for them.
In the conversation, she openly admitted she took them and thought it was no big deal as they only cost a buck and change. She did not consider it stealing. She is not a model parent as she swore and threatened to meet the "store manager" in the parking lot.
Do you consider this stealing? Admittedly I have done this, but I always bring the empty or half empty package to the counter and pay for it. I mean if it is only a buck, I can certainly pay for it and also what sort of example are you showing your young child?
if you pay for it, it is fine. If you don't pay for it, it is stealing.
I often open up and drink from my water bottle before I get to the counter, but I always pay for it.
Yeah, jpin's right. I've used kleenex and stuff while in the store but always pay for them.
What she did was definitely stealing in my book. And blatantly so. Some stock shrinkage in any market is a part of doing business. But when stock shrinkage comes from a customer who openly consumes the product on the premises without paying for it, makes all of our prices eventually go up. What she did was like going into a restaurant and ordering a meal and walking out without paying the tab. She's a common thief. What a great example of parenting.
Lady J wrote:What a great example of parenting.
And we wonder why kids are the way they are.
My kids also frequently want a donut or roll from the bakery to snack on as I shop. It is great because it keeps them quiet (for at least 5 minutes). But I always make it a point to tell the cashier when I check out to add a roll and try to make it obvious to my children as I want them to know we need to pay for it.
This particular woman's response was - she didn't have to pay for it because her child ate it while they were in the store. Really doesn't make much sense to me.
Now what about people who snack on say a grape or two from the produce? Can't really charge for that as they weigh it.
Last summer I was at the farm stand when a very fleshy woman in pink polyester plunked a bag of corn down on the checkout counter and announced, "I have a dozen ears."
The clerk said, "Let me check. We wouldn't want to cheat you."
The woman had sixteen ears of corn, a mess of beets and half a dozen early apples. She'd also helped herself to two paring knives.
She cussed out the clerk--"You people have so much and you won't share" and stomped out of the store without buying anything.
She thought it was okay to rob the rich? Farmers are rich?
That was a sharp move on the part of the clerk, i applaud her/him. I know it is always popular to decry the declining moral values of one's time, but i rather think it is a commonplace throughout human history--after all, two thousand years ago, the Romans were exlaiming O tempore, o mores!--Oh the times, the morals!.
Noddy24 wrote:
She thought it was okay to rob the rich? Farmers are rich?
She is obviously not a farmer.
Stealing is stealing and not okay. The exception would be if you or your family were starving. I don't think that it would be a great sin to steal to stay alive.
More often that not when I enter the market I head for the produce isle and pick out a nice large watermelon, set it in the the place where you are supposed to tie-down your rug-rat, get out my toad sticker and dine on the watermelon as I shop. Periodicly I drop off a chunk of rind usually in the can goods section and by the time I get to the cashier I'm finished. Isn't that why they have watermelons in the market in the first place, you know to entice shoppers like me?
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