Shoplifting in The season for arachnids. Autumn 2016

Lila and I popped into homebase (a diy store) to pick up masking tape and gold paint for a project she was doing. We spent quite a long time looking at Christmas decorations and having fun. Eventually we paid for the items and, just as we were crossing the road I heard a man, who was carrying a power drill, mutter “It was from yesterday.”.

I thought it was a bit funny but left it at that, or at least I would have if Lila hadn’t said, “Mummy, that made me feel funny.” I asked her what had made her feel funny and realised that she had been far more aware of her surroundings than I had. She told me the story.

“The alarm thing bleeped when that man walked out so a shop lady followed him and said “You need to come back and pay for that item!”. He said “I already did!” And the lady said “No you haven’t, I’ve been watching you.”,” and that was the moment he muttered the words I had heard.

Fast forward to the following day and I was browsing Facebook. I follow various For Sale pages which are, mostly, annoying. I get ridiculously fed up of adverts which announce they are looking for buggies/slings/jumperoos etc for a boy/girl because, in my experience, genitals have nothing to do with the function of these items! Anyway, one of them grabbed my attention - it was a power drill for sale, brand new and still in the box. Although I hadn’t looked closely at what the man had been carrying, the shape, size and colours resonated with me.

Clicking on the man’s name took me to a page with nothing on it, no information nor photos.

We went straight back to homebase to show to the manager who thanked us and told us the story. This guy had just got out of prison for stealing from homebase, come straight back and stolen again. The security guards, coming from the back of the store, one going one way and the other going the other way, had stopped the man and got the drill back, however there was another man with him and they had three other of the same item missing.

She thanked Lila profusely and we left.

I do like to live in my little world where 99.99999999% of people have the best intentions, and I feel sad that Lila was a witness to the 0.00000001% because I don’t want it to cloud her opinions of people, but I’m proud of her for being so aware of her surroundings.