Didn’t Your Momma Teach You Better? Inside The Mind Of A Shoplifter

Growing up did you ever do something dumb and your mom or your dad would ask you, “What were you thinking?” Having lived in south for the past 32 years I have learned of the local colloquialism when someone does something stupid, “Didn’t your momma teach you better?” Unfortunately, as a young boy I did a lot of dumb things making me wonder if my brain developed a lot later in life than most people. For example, I had a propensity for walking behind batters warming up to go to the plate for my father’s teen baseball teams. I ended up with more than one fat lip from my stupidity…obviously not learning the lesson the first time. I had a fascination with electrical outlets and wires and old rotary dial telephones…I won’t go into details but no they didn’t work when the wires were pushed into the outlet, I was not injured but I had one very busy guardian angel.  What goes on inside of the mind of a child? I have NO idea and my wife and I have raised THREE of them! The same can be said for shoplifters I have no idea what goes on inside their heads. I can speculate on it, having caught hundreds of them but I am not convinced they have developed their brains yet.

Where I live is a tourist area. In order to get to the beaches and hotels you have to cross over one of any number of bridges. We have a saying around here that tourists leave their brains on the other side of the waterway before crossing the bridge…because they do DUMB things. It may well be that shoplifters leave their brains at home before venturing out. Here are some of examples of what I mean:

• You have a criminal history for shoplifting and are currently on probation. You walk into a store and decide it is a good idea to steal some clothing. Then, when you are caught you ask if you can be let go and you won’t come in again. “Have you lost your mind?”
• You shoplift and get chased and have the audacity to stop and put your hand in your purse and suggest you have a gun. Police draw down on you and put you on the ground to arrest you. Oh that’s right you also had a prior arrest for involuntary manslaughter on your record as well as multiple shoplifting violations. “What were you thinking?”
• You make a decision to shoplift, get away with it and come back later that night and steal again. You are stopped and run but the Loss Prevention Officer grabs your purse as you flee. Yes, you get away but wait a minute, what did you have in your purse? Oh, a butcher knife and your prison I.D. card since you happen to be on parole. “Didn’t your momma teach you better?”
• You have a station wagon loaded with television sets you’ve been stealing from hotels. What do you do since you obviously have plenty of time on your hands? You park out front of a store in the fire lane by the front doors, go into the store, steal a video player and walk out the door. Not only do you set off the Checkpoint EAS tower, Loss Prevention has been watching you. You are approached by L.P. and run. It just so happens that about 8 police officers have been outside following you from the hotels. Why it only makes sense you would run from them too, and try to jump in your station wagon, start it and nearly run into a police car. You are surprised by the fact you are physically dragged out of your car and face-planted in the pavement? Don’t forget to pick up your brain from the other side of the bridge when you do get released from jail.
• You shoplift from a store, Loss Prevention chases you and you pull out pepper spray. You decide to try to use it but the L.P. person is smart enough to keep their distance. A police officer arrives on scene, is about to arrest you and in a moment of shear and total stupidity, you elect to pepper spray HIM! That’s a special kind of STUPID!

What’s in the mind of a shoplifter? I don’t know. The question always elicits the usual responses of, “They can’t help it,” “They didn’t understand what they were doing,,” , etc. I say someone didn’t ask them, “Didn’t your momma teach you better?” then give them a good swat on the posterior when they were younger. And yes, all of those things really happened.