Thievery at Wal-Mart?

I popped into Wal-Mart on my lunch hour one day this week... can't recall exactly which day it was and I don't even remember why I went there considering the fact that I blame Wal-Mart for the downfall of the US economy (long story).

Anyhow, considering Labor Day weekend is upon us, I thought they might have Diet Coke on sale so I went looking for it. Out of three giant displays of Coke products for $5 a case, none had the Diet variety.

I flagged down an employee and asked if he could check in the back for Diet Coke. I really don't know what's there "in the back" but it seemed a likely place for Diet Coke to be hiding since there was none out "in the front" of the store.

The boy/man (he looked to be about 12, but if that were true, he'd surely be in school and not allowed to work at Wal-Mart during his lunch hour) employee returned without the Diet Coke, but with a fascinating tale of woe about his search for it. Not fascinating enough for me to want to listen to the entire story so I said my thank yous and took my search up to the customer service desk.

As I waited for the customer service employees to discuss the existence, validity, policies and possible locations of rain checks amongst themselves, I noticed a man on the telephone, standing next to a cart full of food, clothing and an X-Box game. I overheard him telling the person on the other end of the phone line that yes, indeed, he did need everything that was in the shopping cart and he was sure he had enough money in his account to cover their purchase.

Eventually, one of my rain-check employees walked off in search of a manager to discuss the process for generating a rain check, and the man on the phone ended his conversation. He told the remaining customer service employees that the bank had made some sort of a mistake and would not clear his $800 check for today's cart-full of goodies.

Suddenly, out of nowhere (I swear these guys just beamed in out of mid-air), a store manager and two store security guards appeared and began questioning the guy about the location of the other cart of merchandise. Apparently the guy had an accomplice who had already left the store. As security walked the guy to the parking lot, presumably in search of the rest of the loot, I was left to wait for my rain check and watch 20 other employees root through the abandon cart searching for the X-Box and discussing, amongst themselves, how in the heck he managed to get it out of the electronics department.

I guess I live a very sheltered life and I am a generally trusting person because I really didn't think that this guy would purposely write a bad $800 check for merchandise. But, as I saw the employees retrieve items out of the cart, it started to make sense to me that perhaps it was an attempt at thievery. There were many packages of steaks, the video game console, several games and DVDs, a George Foreman grill and lots of other fun stuff that really didn't seem to me like stuff a person couldn't get along without if they were a bit short of cash in their checking account.

Now it makes more sense to me why, when I returned my one-and-only clothing purchase to Wal-Mart earlier this summer, I was finger printed, photographed and made to write a paper on why I was returning the item.