November 8, 2011

• I know it’s a little late for me to be commenting on that story about the couple who was arrested for failing to pay for $5-worth of sandwiches, but I’m going to jump into the discussion anyway because (1) this happened in Hawaii, my home state; (2) I’ve been to that particular Safeway a number of times; and (3) the story really pissed me off. Like, really pissed me off…

  In case you weren’t familiar with the details, I have drawn them out for you with help from my cats and MS Paint.

  

  Okay, so Husband, Wife, and Daughter take a bus to get some groceries, get lost, and end up at a supermarket called Safeway. I’m not really sure what happened next because several articles had reported the facts differently: one article stated Wife got dizzy and went to Safeway to get something to eat, another said she and her family were already shopping when she started feeling ill. But whatever. Wife starts feeling dizzy, and decides she needs to eat something.

  

  Wife sees some pre-made sandwiches in the store and starts eating one. And here’s where things start looking stanky to me:

  

  For some reason, Husband decides he will also eat a sandwich even though he apparently isn’t sick or dizzy like Wife is. What the f*ck #1.

  Husband and Wife eat the sandwiches as they continue their grocery shopping. When they are done, they put the wrappers into the cart because–as they have since claimed–they intended to pay for the sandwiches when they checked out.

  

  Husband and Wife take their cart to a check-out stand and pay for about $50 worth of groceries.

  

  

  I’m guessing the cashier didn’t see the empty wrappers in the cart or something because the $50 bill did not include the two sandwiches the couple had eaten minutes earlier. And neither Husband nor Wife made any mention of this oversight until a security guard stopped them as they were leaving Safeway.

  

  

  

  And this was where I really lost it: both Husband and Wife forgot to pay for the sandwiches. Both. Did they also forget that they’d eaten the sandwiches minutes earlier? I’m assuming the answer is “yes” because I can’t imagine how you could remember eating something you didn’t pay for, but then later forget to pay. It’s beyond ridiculous, and I’m not buying it. I mean, I’m willing to give Wife a pass for forgetting because she wasn’t feeling well when she ate her sandwich–but the pass comes begrudgingly. She says she didn’t remember because things were hectic and she was dizzy, but how come she was still able to walk around and buy groceries while eating at the same time? It’s shady as hell.

  But let’s give Wife the benefit of the doubt and say she genuinely forgot to pay for the sandwiches because she was suffering through a mental tornado. What’s Husband’s excuse for not paying? He can’t even explain why he ate a sandwich! He clearly didn’t forget to pay, and chose not to bring it up when he checked out. He probably just kept his mouth shut to see if he and Wife could get away with not paying for something they consumed. What the f*ck #2.

  Of course, we all know how it all played out: Husband and Wife were arrested, and Daughter stayed in foster care for, like, 18 hours. And then the story ended up all over the national news (although, oddly enough, it didn’t get very much attention from Hawaii’s media) and people started giving Safeway crap because they read “child custody” and sh*t themselves.

  The anti-Safeway crowd is acting on emotion rather than substance. In their minds, losing temporary custody of one’s child is punishment that does not fit the crime of stealing $5-worth of sandwiches. But it’s not about the paltry sum of money; it’s the principle. When you go into that particular Safeway, there is a sign that says something like, “We will prosecute all shoplifters.” It doesn’t say “We will only prosecute shoplifters who don’t have children,” or “We will only prosecute shoplifters who steal $100 worth of stuff.” It says “We will prosecute all shoplifters.” That language lets you know that a guy who steals something that costs $1 will be treated the same was as someone who steals an item that costs $100.

  Everyone knows that shoplifting is a crime, and that doesn’t change just because the shoplifter has kids. The anti-Safeway people don’t see it that way because they are blinded by the baby factor–but what happens when you take the child out of the equation? What if Husband and Wife didn’t have a kid to begin with? Suddenly they start looking less like persecuted innocents and more like what? Shoplifters. And they deserved to be arrested.

  And yet, Safeway ends up apologizing to Husband and Wife because of all the bad press they’d been getting as a result. Safeway shouldn’t have apologized. They didn’t do anything wrong. They caught Husband and Wife trying to steal, and called the police. Isn’t that what people do when they catch someone trying to steal their stuff? But how come Safeway is forced to say “We’re sorry we called the police after you tried to get away with not paying for the sandwiches you ate”? What the f*ck #3.

  Why are people getting mad at Safeway for Husband and Wife’s child getting taken away in the first place? It wasn’t like they did this:

  

  Safeway didn’t have any say in whether Child Protective Services took the child. After all, when you call the police on someone, you don’t get to determine how the person is dealt with. That’s a decision the responding officer makes, not the person reporting the crime. If it were otherwise, then I wouldn’t have let that girl who plowed into my car just pay me off for her sh*tty driving. I would have instead been like, “I want this b*tch taken to a North Korean labor camp where she can spend the rest of her life pounding pebbles!”

  Seriously, man…What. The. F*ck.

  • 11:40 pm
  • 22 Comments