Ned

My aunt got accused of shoplifting a $4 rotisserie chicken she had already paid for. Self-checkout, Saturday, she pays, bags her stuff, heads for the door. A loss prevention kid steps in front of her cart and says, "Ma'am, you need to come back inside." She says, "I paid." He says, "We need to verify." So she goes back. He pulls the chicken out of her bag, holds it up, and says, "This one didn't scan." She says, "Then why is it on my receipt?" She's holding the receipt. She shows him. He looks at it for a long time. Then he says the sentence that made my aunt, a 71-year-old woman who has never gotten so much as a parking ticket, see red: "Sometimes people print fake receipts." She asked for a manager. Manager looked at the receipt, looked at the chicken, and said, "We'll let it slide this time." *Let it slide.* It scanned. It was paid for. She called corporate the next morning and got a $25 gift card and a half-hearted apology. She donated the gift card to the food bank and now drives eleven extra minutes to a different grocery store. Store security is a real job and shrink is a real cost. But "we'll let it slide" to a woman who did nothing is worse than the accusation.