Hey, What Happened To All The Gatorade?

There’s a big-name shop which has lots of smaller “local” shops in neighbourhoods. One of these is at the top of my road, so I go there often. I’m friendly with one of the managers and we will often stop and chat while I shop. I like a particular brand of energy drink and usually buy a can when I’m there, but today there are none on the shelf. When I get to the registers, I find out why.

Me: “Do you have any [Energy Drink #1] in the back? There’s none on the shelf.”

Manager: “Unfortunately not, sorry.”

He leans in and half-whispers to me.

Manager: “They all got stolen.”

Me: “What? Stolen? What do you mean?”

Manager: “Some guys came in last night, and we were out of [Energy Drink #2] so they got really upset and stole all the [Energy Drink #1].”

Me: “They… stole it? Because you were out of the other type? No way!”

Manager: “Yep. I’m pretty sure they were both on drugs. They were wandering about for ages and kept asking the colleagues for [Energy Drink #2] and got more and more upset until they put all the [Energy Drink #1] in a basket and ran out the door! [Security Guard] wanted to chase after them but I didn’t want her getting hurt over less than £20 of merchandise so I told her to leave it. The police are coming round later to get the security tapes, though.”

Moral of the story is, don’t get upset if a shop doesn’t have a certain thing! It might have been out of punishment by a couple of thieves.