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This isn’t my story but it was related to me by a friend at the weekend and I just had to share.
This friend, let’s call her Sarah, works as a shelf stacker at a supermarket. Naturally this means she has many SC stories, but this one has made it into her top ten. A few days ago she was stacking cans and noticed a guy looking rather furtive. He had a basket full of really random items (5 tubes of toothpaste, a single guava, and a dictionary among other things) and was crooning to himself under his breath. Sarah didn’t think much of it because everybody visits supermarkets and some are going to be crazy. And she has met her share of crazies.
Anyway, she watches as this guy reaches into his basket and tears open the corner of one of those plastic bags you get when you order something from the cheese counter or the meat section – when it is a personal order like 350g of cheddar or a special cut of beef – rather than getting it pre-packaged. He kinda peers inside, looks at her, and then pretends to focus on tinned corn. She carries on stacking but carries on looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He reaches into the basket again and starts fiddling with the plastic bag, but then another customer comes up and asks Sarah a question and she is distracted. By the time she looks back the guy is gone.
Because he looked so weird she decides to just scan the aisles on either side of hers, and sure enough there he is, with his arm sticking right to the back of one of the shelves. She figures he’s one of those people who like to get produce from the back, but when his arm comes out he isn’t holding anything. He then moves down the aisle, reaches into his basket, pulls something from the plastic bag, shoves his arm to the back of the shelf, and walks on.
Sarah calls over a CW and together they pull out the bags of pasta where the guy had shoved his hand. And what do you think was sitting right at the back? A fish. A whole freaking fish. With its big staring eyes looking back at them with an expression of ‘you think I want to be here?’ Leaving the CW to deal with the body, Sarah legs it down the aisle to find the man, who is in the biscuit section with his arm buried up to the shoulder in Maryland cookies. She yells and he runs like crazy, so she follows, calling to security to stop him. By the time a guard has stopped him he has dropped his basket but is still clasping the plastic bag (now significantly less full of fish) to his chest.
Turns out he had got 10 small fish from the fishmonger counter and was depositing them all over the supermarket. For no reason that anybody who doesn’t talk to rocks can figure out. And the real kicker is, he’s done this before, at the same supermarket, and no one found the fish for about 3 days when they started to smell unholy.
And what was Sarah’s reward for her diligence and attention to detail? She got to tramp around the store collecting the fish.
This friend, let’s call her Sarah, works as a shelf stacker at a supermarket. Naturally this means she has many SC stories, but this one has made it into her top ten. A few days ago she was stacking cans and noticed a guy looking rather furtive. He had a basket full of really random items (5 tubes of toothpaste, a single guava, and a dictionary among other things) and was crooning to himself under his breath. Sarah didn’t think much of it because everybody visits supermarkets and some are going to be crazy. And she has met her share of crazies.
Anyway, she watches as this guy reaches into his basket and tears open the corner of one of those plastic bags you get when you order something from the cheese counter or the meat section – when it is a personal order like 350g of cheddar or a special cut of beef – rather than getting it pre-packaged. He kinda peers inside, looks at her, and then pretends to focus on tinned corn. She carries on stacking but carries on looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He reaches into the basket again and starts fiddling with the plastic bag, but then another customer comes up and asks Sarah a question and she is distracted. By the time she looks back the guy is gone.
Because he looked so weird she decides to just scan the aisles on either side of hers, and sure enough there he is, with his arm sticking right to the back of one of the shelves. She figures he’s one of those people who like to get produce from the back, but when his arm comes out he isn’t holding anything. He then moves down the aisle, reaches into his basket, pulls something from the plastic bag, shoves his arm to the back of the shelf, and walks on.
Sarah calls over a CW and together they pull out the bags of pasta where the guy had shoved his hand. And what do you think was sitting right at the back? A fish. A whole freaking fish. With its big staring eyes looking back at them with an expression of ‘you think I want to be here?’ Leaving the CW to deal with the body, Sarah legs it down the aisle to find the man, who is in the biscuit section with his arm buried up to the shoulder in Maryland cookies. She yells and he runs like crazy, so she follows, calling to security to stop him. By the time a guard has stopped him he has dropped his basket but is still clasping the plastic bag (now significantly less full of fish) to his chest.
Turns out he had got 10 small fish from the fishmonger counter and was depositing them all over the supermarket. For no reason that anybody who doesn’t talk to rocks can figure out. And the real kicker is, he’s done this before, at the same supermarket, and no one found the fish for about 3 days when they started to smell unholy.
And what was Sarah’s reward for her diligence and attention to detail? She got to tramp around the store collecting the fish.
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