MikeWrites' Blog

At what point is it theft?

You've seen them.  People come into a convenience store or coffee shop and get something to eat and/or drink.  They then wander to the end of the serving area and--sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes not--grab a wad of napkins or a handful of those little dairy creamer cups and shove them into their purse or pocket.  They then go their merry way.

Now, if you tried to leave a store with a 10-pack of even the cheapest napkins--to say nothing of a small box of creamers--without paying for them, you'd be in hot water pretty quick.  Why does no one raise the alarm?  Why doesn't one of the servers at least call out, "Excuse me! Two creamer limit, please!" or a somewhat snarky, "Hey! You gonna drink that, or wear it?"

And then there's the added cost.  All those stores are trying to make a buck, and they're trying to make it off of us.  Letting folks walk off with fistfuls of supplies means they have to order in larger quantities, and more often.  The costs associated with that get passed right along to the coffee-chuggin', latte-lovin' public.  That's right: us.

So, at what point is it theft?  I just wonder, sometimes.