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treadlightly wrote: ↑Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:09 pm Yeah, I know. Strange people in a big box store. Who would have thought?

Anyway, there we are, smart-shopping for Items and Products. I've alerted on odd behavior in the canned goods. A gentleman sought defilade behind what I think they call an "end cap." He is peering between shelves down the aisle.

My wife notices, and gives me the high sign, which, unfortunately, the alleged creep sees. Now he's alerted on my wife, and by extension alerted on me, and I'm obviously alerted on him.

I split my attention between him and the rest of the store, because the attack always comes from the raptor you never saw, and he scoots down another aisle and out of sight - and then comes back to his post, after my wife and I enter the aisle he had been monitoring. We wanted to alert the shoppers in the aisle to a potential hazard. Everybody needs to be alerted.

I didn't know what to think. I've skulked around to surprise my wife as a prank. After all, if you can't annoy your own wife, who in these troubled times can you annoy?

He could have been playing an absurd game of peek-a-boo, but it didn't quite seem like that. It was creepy behavior.

There were two young ladies in the aisle, smart-shopping for their Items and Products. I asked each one if they were in the company of a bearded fellow. One of them said no, and I warned her to be wary of someone just out of sight at the end of the aisle. The other one was on her phone with a friend, because multiple sightings of the alleged creep all over the store had her spooked. My wife and I offered to escort her at least to the cash registers, but she declined. By that time, the possible weirdo had fled.

And there he was again, at the cash registers, mixed in with some store employees. There wasn't any question he found me interesting, so I readied my go-to weapon of choice, my grin, and asked him who he was and why was he frightening the ladies.

It turns out he was a loss prevention employee, acting like Maxwell Smart trying to blend in at a THRUSH convention. He wasn't mad, but said one of the people I spoke to was a shoplifter, and my blowing his cover meant he had to let her leave with stolen property. I'm sorry a thief got away, but I'm unrepentant, too. Act like a threat in my little happy zone and I will do what it takes for my wife's safety, hopefully through de-escalation and retreat.

I fully support anti-shoplifting efforts but I don't want to sort store ninjas from legitimate creeps.