Another Story Involving Police

Today I worked at my mall job. Partway through the day, a couple of girls from our store went to get soda. They had to go to the food court, because one of the places offers 'mall drinks', which are the huge size of cups, for $1 instead of like $3 or whatever large mall sodas cost.

They were gone for quite a while, and when they came back, they came from the wrong direction. We asked about it and they said there were a bunch of police out in front of our store (well, to the side a little). They said we should go peek. They were really curious about it.

I went out and walked around the whole scene and came back to report. There was a blond lady sitting on a mall bench, and one police guy was standing kind of near her. There was a group of police talking with a guy in a polo shirt, and another policeman with a Hispanic man. The incident stretched around half of a cellphone sales kiosk in the middle of the walkway.

What could it be, we wondered. Maybe sexual harassment, one of my coworkers thought.

We saw one of the policemen start questioning the lady. A little while later, they all left. They walked all kind of in a line, with the Hispanic guy in front, wearing handcuffs.

And like that, the situation dissolved. My coworkers kept wondering aloud what it was all about. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is not curious at all and 1o is extremely curious, I think I was probably at about a 2.5, and my coworkers were at about a 7.5 or an 8.) My coworker suggested I go out and ask the guy in the phone kiosk. And so I did.

What had happened was, the guy tried to steal shoes from a popular athletic shoe store in the mall. There had been someone following him, though, so they caught him. He was taken to jail for it. And get this: the blond lady was his girlfriend?/wife? and she's pregnant with his kid. Due-in-five-days pregnant with his kid. And he's in jail now.

So here's the moral of the story, kids: don't steal. Especially if your girlfriend is about to have a baby. Because that's just sad. If you can't afford shoes, buy some at DI. Or steal them from somewhere that isn't in a mall. (Have I written about how I feel about malls in that regard? I don't think so. I'll have to do that sometime.)

Also, this week I gave notice that I'll be finishing my work at the mall. This month marks one year of mall-working thrill and I think I've had my fun. I'm just too busy for it these days. I have three shifts left as of today.