In my continued quest to reach the status of a law abiding citizen, and following on from my earlier post, I have discovered another potential pitfall. As if naivety wasn’t enough to disrupt my good intentions, I can add absent-mindedness.
The episode happened last weekend. I walked into an electronics store, did some quick browsing and picked up one 9v battery for a smoke detector. Before I knew what I was doing, I was walking back to the car, having wandered out of the store without paying. I can picture the courtroom scene:
“Do you plead guilty or not guilty of stealing one 9 volt battery at 15.52 on 5th December 2009, to the value of £4.49?”.
“Well, yes… but no… but yes… but no.”
To make the situation even worse, I had chosen to carry out my illegal activity on the day of the store’s opening, meaning the there was some sort of big promotional event happening. I don’t think I have ever witnessed so many staff in any one store. There must have been at least 25 of them standing around in turquoise t-shirts, outnumbering the shoppers. However, none of them, it would seem, were on the look out for potential battery thieves. I put it down to sloppy security training!
So, I marched back into the store, wanting to confess my ‘humorous’ venture into the world of shoplifting and decided to relay my tale to the checkout lady.
“Well,” I said chuckling, “I walked out without paying for this and then realised what I had done. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She looked at me sternly. This is obviously the face she gives to all criminals.
