Jul 09
25
Followed
About a week ago my spidey senses kicked in and I knew something was off kilter. I looked around, did not see anything out of the ordinary, and continued on with what I was doing.
A few minutes later I got that funny feeling again, like I was being watched. If I stood very still I could just make out a person in my periphery. Turning my head the tiniest bit allowed me to make an inventory of the person’s clothing and what he was carrying. Satisfied that I had identified my stalker, I turned on my heel and walked away.
The man was a shadow. He never came closer than twenty feet and he sometimes disappeared altogether, but he always came back as if I were a guarantee.
Oh how I wanted to grab this man by the lapels and shake him, letting him know I was not a thief. I would have shook my shopping list in his face and pointed at my half-way full grocery cart to build my case.
For some reason, this Lost Prevention Officer had me in his sights.
As he had obviously appeared in mine, I decided to play along. Heck, it was one of those days.
I looped around the store, filling my cart with fruits, veggies, chicken and dairy, mentally placing each item on an ‘Ease of Theft’ scale.
Green onions? They scored a two because even though they are simple enough to slide up a sleeve their onion-y smell might give a person away. A pound of butter? A five. Packaged steak? An eight as I have never figured out how people are able to steal $100.00 of prime rib without getting caught. Watermelon? A ten.
For every aisle I cruised down, the LPO was there. He occasionally deeked right when I went left, only to reappear from my other side. I desperately wanted to sneak up on him and goose him from behind to point out that his surveillance skills needed a little improvement. I don’t think he was intending to be obvious as he so clearly was trying to be non-chalant, and I’m not trying to be cruel about this whole thing as I completely support and understand when stores have to employ LPO’s to keep theft rates under control.
However, if a hunter is stalking another hunter, he had better be on his game.
I eventually made a big show of putting everything on the cashier’s conveyor belt and of paying the bill. I half expected to get stopped when I exited the store but by then the LPO had moved on to another target.
The last I saw of the LPO was as he trailed a heavy set, middle aged man through the produce section. There was a lightness in the LPO’s step, as if he were sure an arrest was imminent. I took another look at the LPO’s target and realized I would have trailed him too - by the looks of the target he had already concealed a watermelon inside his shirt.
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As an end note – I have many friends who were Loss Prevention Officers, so I tell the above story with light hearted intent. I’m sure any fly on the wall of my police cruiser from my days as a rookie would have similar stories to tell… 
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