Fun With Shoplifters. (Very Short)

[SuperDan]

They should just scrap the alarm gates altogether and install a clown horn. A clown horn is the best thing to deter theft.

[Princess-Snake]

They should just scrap the alarm gates altogether and install a clown horn. A clown horn is the best thing to deter theft.

Clown-horn? Do you mean a bull-horn?

[Spiffy McMoron]

Clown-horn? Do you mean a bull-horn?

Nope. He means clown horn. I can't seem to find a link to it, but the story that I think he's refering to was posted a while back, but a poster whose name has fallen into the cracks of my memory. But the gist of the story is as follows:

OP works at a large electronics store: Best Buy, Future Shop, etc. A head office maroon decides to get rid of the LP guy, and items are being stolen at an alarming rate.

"How can we stop this?" ask the suits.

The question is answered: Install clown horns in every second aisle. Is an employee (or a customer) sees someone stealing crap, they are to blow the clown horn, annoying the crap out of everyone in the store, and scaring the would-be thief into submission. In the end, the horns are blown only by customers who like to make loud noises, and thefts remain at an all-time high.

[Princess-Snake]

Oh. Ok, thanks!

[Rapscallion]

He was called Mindfield. No idea where the tale is - lost in a hack. Damned funny, though.

Rapscallion

[Spiffy McMoron]

He was called Mindfield.

Yes! Thanks for reminding me, Raps.

[MadMike]

If you carry a cel phone (sometimes digital cameras) that's what is setting off the alarm.

I'd still love to know what set it off at Circuit Shitty the one time. I left without buying anything (which was amazing in itself), and did not have my cell phone or any other electronic device on me. I just stood there looking confused while the thing beeped at me. The guy at the counter saw me standing there empty-handed, and waved me through.

In the last two months I have accidentally taken a chocolate bar, a box of Hot Stuff pizzas from two different stores. So bad I walked out of the drug store with it in the bottom of the cart behind my cases of pop. I probably could have gotten away with the hot stuffs because the cashier at the grocery store wasn't paying attention, but fortunately my mom caught it, again behind a case of pop. Even if she didn't catch it, the carry out would have.

I did worse than that once. I can't believe that a person can be this forgetful, but I am so scatterbrained sometimes.

I went to the local Krap-Mart looking for four different items. I found the first three, but could not locate the fourth, and went to the service desk to ask about it, with the other three items in my hand. It turned out they didn't carry the fourth item, so I left, forgetting one minor thing....

...or should I say three minor things, namely the other three items I had picked up, still had in my hands, and had not paid for. I got about halfway to the car before I realized it. Fearing that they were going to come out the door chasing me down any second, I quickly went back inside to explain what had just happened.

Their dumbfounded reply was, "You came back?" They had no idea I had left with the unpaid items, and were even more surprised that I could have gotten away with it, but chose not to.