The "Shoplifter"

James was a man roughly in his thirties and had gone into the local market for a few items when the security guard grabbed and cuffed him as he went out the door. He now found himself handcuffed and sitting in a chair in the security office of the supermarket. Behind him were screens with views of every angle of the store possible, especially the checkout aisles. Images of him froze still on various screens.

Leering over him from just outside the door was an older woman with blue-gray hair and a long winter coat. “That's him! That's the guy I saw at the self-checkout pretending to pay... but didn't!”

“Pretend?” James glanced at the bag of groceries. “Pretend? Look in the bag, you'll see a receipt.”

The woman reached for the bag and turned it upside down spilling everything onto the floor, a dozen eggs splattered all at once, a container of cherry tomatoes broke open and landed in the eggs, along with a variety of other items all being destroyed as they hit the floor. “Well, where is the receipt?”

“Lady,” the security guard had seen enough, he stood by silently watching, “no matter if he paid for them or not, you're going to have to reimburse somebody for all of that, whether it's him or us. Besides, you're not even supposed to be back here.”

“Listen young man,” the old woman barked into the guard's face, “I shop here every day, and I know a shoplifter when I see one.”

“Back away!”

James noticed that the woman had to squint to even see the burly guard twice her size that stood face to face with her. “You can't even see what's in front of your face, let alone from a few feet away.”

The woman peered at James, only it wasn't him, but an image of him frozen in time on the screen. “I can see things very clearly.”

“Actually,” James smirked, “I'm over here.”

“Uh,” The woman turned to face James as she squinted at him, “I knew that.”

The guard looked at the screen that showed James waving his debit card at the self-checkout, then looked at the woman, “you didn't really see anything out of the ordinary, did you?”

“You can plainly see that he just waved the card around,” the woman quickly pointed at the image, “it didn't even make contact with the machine. Not in any way!”

“Because it's that kind of a card, you dumb ass!” James rolled his eyes at the woman.

“Then where is the receipt!”

James noticed a slip of paper that was under the dozen broken eggs that were sitting on the floor in a pool. He instinctively reached down to pick it up, but remembered his hands were cuffed together. “There it is there, under the eggs!”

The guard reached down, picked it up and waited a few seconds to let the eggs and tomatoes drip off. “So, it is.”

“That doesn't prove anything!” The woman reached out to grab the receipt, but to no avail.

“Actually,” the guard began to read what he could of the receipt, “it does.”

The woman tried to stand her ground but watched as the guard began to undo the cuffs that were around James' wrist.

“You need to reimburse him the total cost of the receipt,” the guard said, “then you are banned from ever coming back into the store.”

“You'll be losing a loyal customer!” The woman slapped the proper sum of money into James' waiting hand.

“I think we can deal with that loss,” the guard smiled as the woman turned to leave the office, only to find the store manager coming in. He quickly explained the situation to the manager who agreed that the woman should at least be banned from ever coming back.