Bub 209 notes:

I was at the Sears Hardware in Alsip, IL last week, checking out at the
register.
This big kid in a winter parka sauntered in and started crusing the tool
aisles,
up and down, up and down. One of the older male employees called for help,
but all they would do was stand a couple of aisles away with their backs to
the
kid. It was pretty obvious what was happening. The next day I went in for
something or other and asked the old guy if what I thought I was seeing was
what was really happening, and he said, yeah, on a daily basis. Many of the
Sears Hardware stores are going under. They're staffed with a skeleton crew
of mimimum wage employees whose only self-defense training is for punching
themselves in the chest to get the pacemaker going again, so they aren't
going to run out the door to tackle the guys. So if you want to add to your
tool collection, come over to Sears Hardware. It's open season

Not the clerk's job to catch the kid, anyway. That calls for a store security
person who knows the ins and outs of messing with people and finding zilch when
a search is underway...zilch except for the cell phone already set to dial his
lawyer.

Charlie Self
"Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen." Ambrose Bierce, The
Devil's Dictionary