That Choice Is Going To Sting

I was working in a convenience store. One night, it was busy, and my coworker and I were both running registers. I noticed a teenage-looking dude join my coworker’s line with a can of beer. She saw him, too, and gave me a knowing look.

When he got to the counter, she asked him for his ID. He handed her his driver’s license. She looked at it, put the beer under the counter, and, before I could stop her, dropped his driver’s license into the cash drop safe.

Coworker: “Your momma can pick that up in the morning!”

The cocky dude laughed and went outside. A minute later he came back in, followed by two cops. It had been a sting operation.

Cop: “You need to return that ID right now.”

Coworker: “It’s in the time-delay safe. Only the store manager can open it.”

The cop threatened to arrest both of us for theft and interfering with a police operation. My coworker accused him of entrapment and called him a fascist pig, among other things.

Me: “[Coworker], take a break. Officer, I will call the store manager and get him to come in and open the safe and return the ID.”

It turns out that the store manager was about an hour away, so for an hour, we were hosts to two angry cops hanging around drinking free coffee and a cocky kid sitting on the floor playing with his phone. Finally, the store manager arrived. He set the ten-minute timer on the time-delay safe.

Again, the angry cop demanded the ID right away. The store manager explained that the safe had a ten-minute delay. Then, he went into the back room.

I found out later that he texted a pic of the kid to his fellow managers to warn them of the sting operation.

Finally, the store manager was able to open the safe and return the ID. The cops left, followed by the kid, who winked and clicked his tongue at us on his way out the door.