I worked for the electronic surveillance side of our very large store’s loss prevention after I got out of service. My job sometimes involved the physical side, and I was trained in both.

By far the craziest things I saw were people absolutely destroying something and then returning it. I have seen riding mowers that have absolutely been beaten to h*** returned after eighty days or so. Chainsaws, bikes, you name it.

One of the funnier ones was a guy who would buy a new rifle and scope combination for deer season and then return it after the season was over. As firearms sales are final unless there is a defect, you really have to work hard to bend something on a rifle and make it look like a manufacturer defect. They said he did it every year.

Returning clothing is easy at our store; basically, you can return it for any reason as long as it isn’t torn or stained. But people have wonderful stories that they feel they have to tell about how the size changed or the color is now different.

I saw a guy who was wearing a bulky coat with what at a glance appeared to be hands hanging out of the sleeves. Suddenly, two hands appeared out of the zipper opening and grabbed and hid the merchandise they tried to steal.

People try and hide merchandise under their babies in child carriers; that happens a lot.

I think the wildest, most unbelievable thing I ever saw was when a woman brought three boys between seven and eleven, and as they got inside the store, she told them right next to me (I was in civilian clothing so I didn’t look like security or an employee), “Destroy the place however you want.” And they tried to do exactly that. As she started shopping, they took off in different directions with the intention of causing enough distractions so that she could shoplift a few items.

Now when people say to me, “Thank you for your service,” I ask them, “Military or retail?”

My mother got into an argument with an alcoholic family member. Now, this family member was calling us every ten minutes and harassing us; she was blitzed out of her mind drunk and thought this was a good idea. This was causing my mother undue stress, and my mother could not get a word in edgewise because this family member would scream obscenities at her until my mother hung up on her. Rinse and repeat.

Finally, after the third call:

Me: “Let me answer the phone next time. Don’t let her get to you. Go calm down.”

The phone rang again and I answered. [Family Member] started screaming obscenities at me, thinking I was my mother. I tried to get it through to her that she had me on the phone and my mother wasn’t going to be talking to her anymore, but like my mother, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Then, finally, I let out a deafening scream into the phone.

Me: “SHUT YOUR F****** MOUTH FOR ONE G**D***ED MINUTE, YOU F****** DRUNK, STUPID PIECE OF S***!”

There was a pause, and then she screamed back.

Family Member: “F*** YOU!”

She hung up on me, but she never called back again.

When I put the phone down, my mother was staring at me with eyes wide and jaw on the floor.

Mother: “I… have never heard you swear in my life!”

Me: “Sorry. It was the only way I could get through to her!”

I see a woman park in our fire lane (actually sprawled out over that AND one of our disabled parking spots) and then just wander in like it was nothing.

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am?”

I know she heard me, but she’s ignoring me. I speak louder.

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am?! You can’t park there.”

Customer: “I can park wherever I want. I’m a sovereign citizen.”

Me: “A what?”

Customer: “I’m a sovereign citizen. Your laws don’t apply to me.”

I’ve heard about these entitled crazies. They think the laws do not apply to them and they don’t recognize the government, or something like that.

Me: “Well, the parking bays and fire bay aren’t a government thing; it’s a store policy. You can’t park there.”

Customer: “Watch me.”

And off she goes, smugly walking into the store. Of course, I immediately call our towing company (we have them on speed dial), who are only too happy to be there within fifteen minutes to make a little extra money.

Our sovereign citizen is approaching the checkout, sees her car being towed, and runs out the door cussing and screaming. I am overseeing the car being towed, so I witness this.

Customer: *Shouting at the tow truck driver* “Give me back my car! You have no right to take it!”

Me: “Ma’am, I warned you that you couldn’t park here. You refused to move your vehicle, so I had no choice.”

Customer: “You b****! I am a sovereign—”

Me: “—citizen, yes, you said. That means nothing, I’m afraid. Here is the card for the towing company. I believe they can release your car for $200 if you claim it on the same day.”

Customer: “I’m going to call the police!”

Me: “I thought you didn’t believe in the police?”

Customer: “I’m going to… I’m… Urgh!”

She screamed and started kicking the tow truck. Thankfully, she started doing this in front of our store cameras, the footage from which came in very handy when we actually DID call the police due to her escalating unruliness. 

I haven’t seen her since, but I hope she found a way to move to her sovereign nation and leave the rest of us alone?

Several years ago, I was shopping quite late one Sunday evening, around 8:00 or so. The grocery store was quite deserted, but in the vegetable aisle, two children were running around with no adult whatsoever in sight. Both almost head-planted into my cart several times.

It was a girl who looked to be about six and a boy who was about four. The girl had Down Syndrome, and the boy kept shouting the most offensive slurs at her. He was so tiny yet using such offensive language. Most likely he was just repeating what he had heard the adults in his life say about the girl, but then again, who would use that language about an innocent little child? (Don’t get me wrong — you don’t use it about adults, either, but especially not preschoolers.)

But what do you do? As a random adult, you cannot stop the running children and begin scolding the slur-spewing kiddo, nor can you grab him and drag him to the information desk to get a hold of the parents and chew them out for his offensive language. It is a very bad look to drag strange children halfway around the store; most likely I’d be accused of kidnapping.

I walked away.

My sister recently developed alpha-gal syndrome. This is a medical condition, sometimes passed by a bite from a Lone Star tick, which causes the person involved to have an allergy to meat and dairy products. It is a total upheaval in someone’s life. Luckily, my sister was vegetarian anyway, so there was almost no change in her diet. We sometimes like to joke that these things were genetically modified by PETA, or that it must be horrendous for people who are already allergic to another food group, but we understand the seriousness of the disease.

This occurs when my sister goes to a well-known sandwich chain while visiting some friends of ours that we haven’t seen in a while. They know about her new allergy, so they decide to help her when she eats at this store. My sister hasn’t been to this chain since she developed the allergy, so she doesn’t know what she can have.

Sister: “Hi, can I have a [sandwich]?”

Employee: *Friendly* “Sure.”

Sister: “I just want to check, are there any meat or dairy products in this?”

Employee: “Okay, why’d you ask?”

Sister: *Awkwardly* “You see, I have alpha-gal syndrome—”

Employee: “No, no, it’s absolutely fine.”

My sister sits down at a table and talks to her friends. When her food is ready, she takes it, but as she is carrying everyone’s meals on a tray, the sandwich slips and falls to the ground, and the two halves separate. She then notices that her sandwich clearly has ground beef inside.

Sister: *To the employee* “Hey, my sandwich has meat in it!”

Employee: “Oh, you’re the vegan, right?”

Sister: “Yes, but not by—”

Employee: “You know, I’m sick of you vegans coming in and ordering rubbish. Do you have any idea how much meat we end up wasting?”

My sister’s friends have gotten up at this commotion and come over.

Friend: “She asked for vegan; give her vegan.”

Sister: “I can’t eat meat!”

The employee sneers and rolls his eyes crossly.

Employee: “Of course you can. You’ve got a mouth.”

Sister: *Getting frustrated* “I already told you, I have alph—”

Employee: “Calling yourself an alpha girl doesn’t make you an Alpha!”

My sister is too shocked to say anything.

Friend: “It means she’s allergic to meat, dumba**!”

Employee: “No one’s allergic to meat! You’re all just too stuck up to change your diet! Have a burger once in a while; it won’t kill you! Now, get out of here before I call the cops.”

Our friends called the police, instead. After confirming that my sister did have an allergy to meat, the employee was arrested for endangering her life. Alpha-gal syndrome is a very real and dangerous condition, and if my sister had bitten the meat, she could have ended up comatose or even died.