Weirdest thefts?

[Plaidman]

You've all had garbage stolen. I've had real garbage stolen, and it was the first theft I ever had working at Plaid.

Dude comes in while I'm learning the til. The manager is doing some paperwork. Dude yells at me that he works for the city and is here to change the garbage, and where do I keep the spare bags. Not sure of what to do as its MY FIRST DAY, I ask the manager, who looks at the guy like he is the biggest moron, and calmly tells him to get the f out.

Guy cries out in frustation, grabs the garbage bag out of the can, runs out to the street, throws it on the sidewalk and walks off.

What was in the garbage? Wrappers, coffee grins, recipts that no-one needs.
Manager told me to go pick it up to throw in the dumpster. He kinda hoped he'd change it and thrown in the dumpster to save us the work.


Guess what I saw when I went to get it? Him down the street, taking out the garbage of a city garbage bin.

[booger]

There was a really odd one at work about 2 weeks ago. A lady stole a bunch of stuff...some candy and who knows what else. She was middle aged. The reason we knew she stole it was the lady who was with her took her over to customer service and made me give it all back. She was all like, "Sorry, we stole some stuff and we are just giving it back."

I guess the thief lady was drunk and she was living in some place that she'd get kicked out of if she was arrested, so her sober friend was begging for them not to call the cops. I am not sure what happened but it sure was odd. They waited a long time there because they wanted to speak to the security people and the store manager.

[Imogene]

You've all had garbage stolen. I've had real garbage stolen, and it was the first theft I ever had working at Plaid.

Guess what I saw when I went to get it? Him down the street, taking out the garbage of a city garbage bin.

Just a thought, perhaps he was looking for aluminum cans?

One of my coworkers would recycle bottles, cans, whatever, and would gladly save them from the trash when he saw them, he got me trained to help him find cans and bottles while walking in/out to the car...

[Plaidman]

Plausible, I'll give you that, but most people just came in and demanded the few cans we saved, since we're ourselves are required to take them and give money to customers who bring them in. Gotta love Oregon.

[Getoutofmylobby]

Each weekend for about a month we has someone, probably a local, use the men's AND women's bathroom in the lobby and they would steal all the paper "assgaskets" from the dispenser.



What would they use 'em for? Do they think they're going to catch some disease from themselves?

If they were kids i kind of understand. My friends and me had an immature fascination with stealing toothpick dispensers from Waffle Houses when we were in highschool.

[Pagan]

A shrubbery.

And I bet they were dressed as knights and saying "Ni" the whole time!


Some of our t-shirts are on hangers where I work. I haven't been able to figure out which is more disturbing - finding an empty hanger or finding a t-shirt on the floor because someone stole the hanger!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

The Monty Python angle is why I strongly suspect the shrubbery was the victim of a Halloween scavenger hunt.

[KamenRiderOsaka]

when hubby worked at wally world, people would steal condoms...and leave them in the store with samples inside of them.

Tonight when we were there, I saw in the V-Day aisle a package of yugioh cards that had been stolen. No cards left in the package, just the packaging. I said (very loudly) "Thats pretty f&$kin ghetto to steal Yugioh cards, I didnt think that was popular anymore!" The thief (im fairly sure) was still im the aisle because I saw this kid turn bright red and walk away.

[flicksgirl]

We keep all the dvd movies behind the counter at our store but we have had people steal the empty cases from the shelves. the funniest one was when our vhs copy of rounders got stolen. The tapes are behind the cases but have security chips inside the tape case..this person actually found our one blind spot on camera and peeled the windows out of the tape in order to get the movie out without setting off the alarm. I heard from a couple of my regular student customers that a teacher had shown it the last day before christmas holiday to her class, and if you missed it you HAD to watch it because she wanted a 500 word essay handed in on the first day back. Stupid thing was if they had asked and told me why they needed it i would probably have rented it for free.

[Jester]

In effect, he broke OUT of the building.

This gave me the biggest laugh of my night.

A shrubbery.

Until I read this!


Just the other day at my new job, we had an interesting theft. On our tables, we have table tents that flip to various cards, telling you what specials we have on different days of the week. Well, the other day, after one of my tables left, we discovered that they had stolen the card for the daily specials out of the plastic flip card attached to the table tent. WHY they would steal one daily special card, I haven't the foggiest freakin' clue.

Heck, at both my jobs, I will often find that people have "stolen" the coasters with the bar's name that I have put down under their drinks. I then put down more coasters under their now coasterless drinks, and tell them honestly, folks....all you have to do is ask. (There is one bar in town that SELLS packs of its coasters, but honestly....I am sure people steal them there, too.)


Sadly, or amusingly (depending on your viewpoint), I have two funnier theft stories, and in both of them, I was the thief.

1. When I was traveling the country, I once went prancing drunkenly through a hotel I was not staying at, and stole every single Do Not Disturb sign that was on the doors! I'd like to blame this on youthful indiscretion, but I was 28 at the time. I'd like to blame it on the booze, but frankly, I wasn't that snockered. Honestly, I don't know which was more amusing, making off with those Do Not Disturb signs, or imagining the looks on the faces of the guests when the ones who didn't want to be disturbed were, and the looks on the faces of the staff when they realized someone had stolen all their Do Not Disturb signs. I actually still had one of them hanging on my door until very recently. Yes, this was stupid and evil of me. But it was funny. And I have never claimed to be a saint.

2. When I was in my early 20's, I stole Kathy Ireland.

Well, not Kathy Ireland herself, but a large cardboard cutout standup of her, promoting this or that beer or booze. I stole it from a bar I was a regular at. When I got to the bar that night, I saw it, and knew I had to take it. So when I left, I picked her up under my arm, and started to make a beeline for the door. The amusing thing is some of the staff helped me make good my escape by redirecting me and helping me avoid the cameras. When I got home, I set Kathy, standing in my bedroom.

No, I wasn't that lonely...I had a girlfriend at the time. And no...she was not very amused with Kathy being in my bedroom. But she knew enough not to mess with it.

[ShootMePlease]

Barney (yes, I mean the purple dinosaur) DVD

Gospel CD's

Soap dispensers from the bathroom

Spongebob Squarepants DVD

The entire first season of Charles in Charge

[myswtghst]

My friends and I, in high school and on through college, were big fans of stealing the weirdest shite we could get away with. This included: a Spongebob movie cutout that was too big to fit in the car at the theatre, at least one other movie display, a large quantity of silverware from restaurants, condiments from restaurants (incl. ketchup and mustard in the bottle), the Do Not Disturb signs from hotels, and trays from the cafeteria in our dorm, so they could go "tray-boarding" through the hallways. Also, a group of my friends would steal things like trophies/lava lamps/knick knacks during house parties in college, and try to convince me to put them in my purse. Immature? Yes. Fun? Definitely.

[BookstoreEscapee]

When my brother was little he stole a toy mouse from the store where my mom worked (anyone remember Jamesway?). She found it and made him give it back. I think he was about 4 or 5.

I'll admit I went through a bit of a klepto phase when I was in middle school, but I never stole from a store. Mostly change and stuff from my parents and brother. My dad drove us past the juvenile detention center near us and told us that's where we'd end up if we didn't watch it.

[Noelegy]

I'm plagued by perennially cold feet, even in summer. So I was thrilled to find a pair of snuggy warm Dearfoams slippers on clearance for $5, originally $20. I took them to work and kept them in my desk drawer. These were the really nice kind of slippers, going all the way up to the ankle, and velvety soft.

We've been under a legal document hold for as long as I can remember, which means that every piece of paper that I touch, I have to keep for filing. So I have a number of document storage boxes beneath my desk for this purpose. I kept my slippers on top of one of these boxes, and nobody bothered them for weeks.

Finally, someone took ONE of them. Left the other. There are over 1300 employees in my building, and although I've seen a couple of people who use wheelchairs, I've yet to see any one-legged employees.

[tollbaby]

The entire first season of Charles in Charge

Maybe that was just someone taking pity on potential consumers by destroying the damn thing before it could spread its evil?