Giving A Bad Name To… Well… Everyone!

Via the cameras, I spot a customer taking a pair of sunglasses and sneaking them into their handbag. I wait at the checkouts to give them the benefit of the doubt, but sadly, they walk straight through without paying.

Me: “Ma’am, can I see what you have in your bag, please?”

Customer: “I have social anxiety!”

Me: “I understand. I just need to quickly look in your bag.”

Customer: “No! Your behavior is very triggering for me right now! You’re bringing up a lot of trauma!”

Me: “That’s not my intention, ma’am. I just need to quickly look in your bag.” 

Customer: “Why are you targeting me? Is it because I’m neurodivergent? Oh, my God, are you being ableist right now? So sad. You should do better.”

Me: “Ma’am, I am not trying to do anything else — literally anything else — other than look in your bag.” 

Customer: “Don’t call me ‘ma’am’! I’m non-binary! That’s offensive! Your language is very triggering!”

Me: “I apologize. But I still need to check your bag.” 

Customer: “But why?”

Me: “To be perfectly honest, because our camera caught you putting a pair of unpaid-for sunglasses into your bag, and I need to confiscate them.”

Customer: “Oh, my God! You were watching me?! Are you a creep? Is [Store] run by perverts?!”

Me: “Ma’am, please, just—”

Customer: “I’m non-binary!“

Me: “…Please just return the sunglasses. You’re lucky I am not calling the police and that I am simply asking for them back. Give them back, and we can both just walk away from this conversation.”

Customer: “You want to call the police?! You want them to shoot me?! I’m one-sixteenth Native, and they shoot people like me! Why are you being so racist?!”

Me: “Okay, I am done with you.” 

I motioned the security guys over, who kept them cornered until the police arrived. The police managed to get them to take the stolen sunglasses out of their bag — after the same run-around of social anxiety, trauma, ableism accusations, misgendering accusations, pervert accusations, and finally, racism accusations, in the exact same order. And then, the police escorted them out, not because they had stolen from us, but because we could all smell the alcohol on them and they had driven here.