Evy and I took the bus out to the mall just about every rainy Saturday, so when we woke up to rain the Saturday Sandy was visiting from St. Louis, it was obvious how the three of us would spend the day. We walked the half-mile to Lake Shore Drive and stood under the shelter of the Stop 20 shed until the bus arrived. With tickets and transfers in hand, we went immediately to the back to find seats.
On this particular day, Evy and I both had babysitting money in our purses and intended to buy friendship rings. As we were about to leave Sandy’s mom grabbed her purse and said to her daughter, “Here sweetheart, let me give you some money to shop with.” I’d never seen such a thing before as someone’s mom just handing over the tremendous amount of twenty dollars. Sandy took the money as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
After the bus dropped us off at Carson Pirie Scott, we headed into the mall to get Orange Julius beverages to start off our shopping day. Marquette Mall was all grayish concrete with a few planters full of low-growing greenery running down the middle. It was just one level with no fountains or water features of any kind, but with twenty stores to choose from, we were happy to be sheltered from the elements.
We girls spent a couple hours milling about looking at clothes, records, cards, and Spencer gifts before heading back to Carson’s to catch the bus back home. Evy and I had looked at friendship rings in the jewelry stores but there had been nothing we could afford. At the jewelry counter in Carson’s, however, we found exactly what we wanted. The rings were a gold color and cost only about seven dollars. The young clerk helped us while we each tried on the same style ring until we found the right sizes. We handed her the cash from our hard-earned babysitting money to complete the transactions. She wrapped each ring in a piece of tissue paper, placed them in individual bags, and handed the bags and receipts to us. We were very excited.
“Where’s Sandy?” I asked as we turned away from the counter.
“She said she was going over to the junior department to look at slacks and tops,” Evy answered as we both reached our hands into our bags. We unwrapped the friendship rings, ripped the price tags off of them, and promptly placed the rings on our fingers. We smiled with pleasure at the cheap little rings on our adolescent hands. We then crunched up the bags and threw them away along with the receipts into a nearby trash can before heading off to find Sandy.
The junior department was fully stocked with the latest fashions in jeans, hip-huggers, body suits, and all sorts of accessories. I saw Sandy coming out of one of the changing rooms just as we arrived in the department. She was still browsing when Evy said, “Hey, I need to go to the ladies room.” I pointed toward the sign just as a rack of yellow print blouses caught my eye. A few seconds passed before I checked back over my shoulder to make sure Evy had headed in the right direction when I saw a burly-looking man walking right behind her. “That’s weird,” I said out loud.
“What’s weird?” Sandy asked as she came up the aisle next to me.
“I just saw a man following Evy toward the restroom. I wonder what a man is doing in the junior department.” Sandy gave me a concerned, almost fearful, look and I suddenly thought I’d better go to the ladies room myself.
“Evy?” I asked as I entered the restroom, “You OK?”
One of the toilets flushed as she came out of the stall, “Yeah, why?” she asked as she started washing her hands.
“This really creepy guy seemed to follow you over here and now he’s hanging around outside the door.”
She grimaced at me and dried her hands. She looked at her watch and said, “Well, guy or no guy, we’ve got a bus to catch in a few minutes so we’d better get going.”
Sandy still looked a bit terror struck but I tried to reassure her, “It’s OK, Sandy. We’re in a big department store with tons of people around. This guy’s not going to try anything weird with so many people and clerks around. Let’s just go outside and wait for the bus and get home.” She didn’t look quite convinced and I felt a bit sorry for her being so scared.
“I have to pee,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes. You go ahead.” Evy and I shrugged and headed out the door.
The guy wore a nondescript pair of dark-colored trousers and a gray polo shirt. Dull loafers poked out underneath the cuffs of his pants. His hair was slicked back with some sort of oily substance and his face had a pallor you’d associate with that of a smoker. When we came out of the ladies room, he gave us a surreptitious look as he slid the hangers along a rack of girls jackets. Evy and I skirted around the edge of the racks of clothes holding hands and headed toward the back entrance of the store. The guy caught up to us and grabbed a hold of Evy’s arm. I stepped back as he said to both of us, “Come with me, girls, you’re in a whole lot of trouble. I’m the store detective.” He then grabbed me by the arm and while dozens of people, mostly older women, were looking on, dragged us toward the back of the store. We were stunned into silence by the sheer size of this man, his obvious strength and determination, the embarrassment of being hauled off to who knew where, and scared because we had no idea what we had done.
The detective dragged us past the customer service area and into a small well-lit room that had exactly two plastic chairs. He ordered us to take a seat. Evy and I sat in complete disbelief. She looked at her watch and muttered, “We’re going to miss this bus.” I nodded knowing this to be true. My stomach was churning around and my worst fear was that this guy was going to somehow call my mother. I could hear her admonitions in my head: When you get in trouble at school, you get in worse trouble at home. Do you understand me?
The store detective at Carson Pirie Scott came back into the empty little room where Evy and I sat with hands folded in our laps. He was followed by a short plump woman wearing a security uniform. “Seems you girls have been caught shoplifting according to Mr. Snelling.” We both stared blankly. She ordered us to stand, and systematically patted us both down, searched our purses, and the bag Evy had with a purchase from another store. She even reached up through our pants legs and under our shirts to check to see if other clothing was lurking beneath. She looked over at Mr. Snelling and shook her head. He nodded over at us and said, “Look at their hands.” The woman saw right away that we were both wearing the exact same rings. They were shiny new and she suspiciously asked, “Where did you get those rings, girls?” I blurted out the story of purchasing them at the jewelry counter. I told her that the clerk could tell her that what I was saying was true. “Where are the receipts?” she asked. My stomach lurched as a picture of us crumpling up the bags and receipts and throwing them in the trash popped into my head. “I can find the receipts,” I claimed. The woman and Mr. Snelling looked at each other. He shrugged to indicate he didn’t care whether she let me go look or not and she said, “You go find the receipts, but your friend stays here.” I took off and ran down the main aisle of the store. The jewelry counter was right at the entrance to the mall and so was the trash can. There was no one at the counter so I thrashed around through the trash to find our bags. Inside were both receipts, which I clutched tightly in my fist as I ran back to the security office.
It then didn’t take long to get everything straightened out. The woman dismissed us and we left the security office. “Oh my god!” I exclaimed, “Where’s Sandy?” I’d completely forgotten about her throughout our ordeal and wondered if she was still in the bathroom. Evy and I picked up the pace as we hurried by the customer service desk. As we passed the outer door to the store where we would meet the bus, I looked outside and saw her sitting by herself in the shelter of the eaves of the building. We pushed through the double doors and inhaled our first breaths of fresh air in over three hours. We had about a half hour to wait for the next bus. We plunked down on either side of Sandy and poured out our tale. She was properly aghast and sympathetic to what we’d gone through.
When we arrived back home, we went to Evy’s house to show her mom our rings. We also told her the whole story of the store detective and what had happened. Mrs. Batstone was so outraged by the treatment and injustice she got out the phone book and looked up the number for Carson Pirie Scott. “I do over one hundred dollars worth of business there each month but you can be sure I won’t be doing business with you any longer after the incomprehensible treatment my daughters received today.” (I loved that part—her including me as one of her daughters.) She hung up the phone and continued to rant to us about adults in so-called power positions taking advantage of children. “Getting off on intimidating children—oh yes, what a powerful man,” she said facetiously. We thought it was so wonderful her standing up for us, threatening big bad Carson Pirie Scott & Co., and genuinely being on our side.
The scene was a little different at my house. With fury in her tone, Mom said, “Well, you shouldn’t have thrown out those receipts. Don’t you know that you NEVER throw away receipts before leaving a store? It’s absolutely idiotic what you did and you deserved to be treated like common criminals.” I hung my head in shame thinking about what a screw-up I was.
Later in the evening, after our parents had gone to the basement to watch some sporting event on TV, Sandy confessed that she had actually shoplifted about fifty dollars worth of items and still had the twenty her mother had given her. She’d apparently gone into the dressing room and put on the clothes and then redressed over the top of a stolen pair of panties, bra, shorts, and two tops. She’d also slipped a couple of bracelets on her arms and a new pair of gold-hoop earrings. She thought herself very clever, and the whole thing quite hilarious. But, I was not amused.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2015
On this particular day, Evy and I both had babysitting money in our purses and intended to buy friendship rings. As we were about to leave Sandy’s mom grabbed her purse and said to her daughter, “Here sweetheart, let me give you some money to shop with.” I’d never seen such a thing before as someone’s mom just handing over the tremendous amount of twenty dollars. Sandy took the money as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
After the bus dropped us off at Carson Pirie Scott, we headed into the mall to get Orange Julius beverages to start off our shopping day. Marquette Mall was all grayish concrete with a few planters full of low-growing greenery running down the middle. It was just one level with no fountains or water features of any kind, but with twenty stores to choose from, we were happy to be sheltered from the elements.
We girls spent a couple hours milling about looking at clothes, records, cards, and Spencer gifts before heading back to Carson’s to catch the bus back home. Evy and I had looked at friendship rings in the jewelry stores but there had been nothing we could afford. At the jewelry counter in Carson’s, however, we found exactly what we wanted. The rings were a gold color and cost only about seven dollars. The young clerk helped us while we each tried on the same style ring until we found the right sizes. We handed her the cash from our hard-earned babysitting money to complete the transactions. She wrapped each ring in a piece of tissue paper, placed them in individual bags, and handed the bags and receipts to us. We were very excited.
“Where’s Sandy?” I asked as we turned away from the counter.
“She said she was going over to the junior department to look at slacks and tops,” Evy answered as we both reached our hands into our bags. We unwrapped the friendship rings, ripped the price tags off of them, and promptly placed the rings on our fingers. We smiled with pleasure at the cheap little rings on our adolescent hands. We then crunched up the bags and threw them away along with the receipts into a nearby trash can before heading off to find Sandy.
The junior department was fully stocked with the latest fashions in jeans, hip-huggers, body suits, and all sorts of accessories. I saw Sandy coming out of one of the changing rooms just as we arrived in the department. She was still browsing when Evy said, “Hey, I need to go to the ladies room.” I pointed toward the sign just as a rack of yellow print blouses caught my eye. A few seconds passed before I checked back over my shoulder to make sure Evy had headed in the right direction when I saw a burly-looking man walking right behind her. “That’s weird,” I said out loud.
“What’s weird?” Sandy asked as she came up the aisle next to me.
“I just saw a man following Evy toward the restroom. I wonder what a man is doing in the junior department.” Sandy gave me a concerned, almost fearful, look and I suddenly thought I’d better go to the ladies room myself.
“Evy?” I asked as I entered the restroom, “You OK?”
One of the toilets flushed as she came out of the stall, “Yeah, why?” she asked as she started washing her hands.
“This really creepy guy seemed to follow you over here and now he’s hanging around outside the door.”
She grimaced at me and dried her hands. She looked at her watch and said, “Well, guy or no guy, we’ve got a bus to catch in a few minutes so we’d better get going.”
Sandy still looked a bit terror struck but I tried to reassure her, “It’s OK, Sandy. We’re in a big department store with tons of people around. This guy’s not going to try anything weird with so many people and clerks around. Let’s just go outside and wait for the bus and get home.” She didn’t look quite convinced and I felt a bit sorry for her being so scared.
“I have to pee,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes. You go ahead.” Evy and I shrugged and headed out the door.
The guy wore a nondescript pair of dark-colored trousers and a gray polo shirt. Dull loafers poked out underneath the cuffs of his pants. His hair was slicked back with some sort of oily substance and his face had a pallor you’d associate with that of a smoker. When we came out of the ladies room, he gave us a surreptitious look as he slid the hangers along a rack of girls jackets. Evy and I skirted around the edge of the racks of clothes holding hands and headed toward the back entrance of the store. The guy caught up to us and grabbed a hold of Evy’s arm. I stepped back as he said to both of us, “Come with me, girls, you’re in a whole lot of trouble. I’m the store detective.” He then grabbed me by the arm and while dozens of people, mostly older women, were looking on, dragged us toward the back of the store. We were stunned into silence by the sheer size of this man, his obvious strength and determination, the embarrassment of being hauled off to who knew where, and scared because we had no idea what we had done.
The detective dragged us past the customer service area and into a small well-lit room that had exactly two plastic chairs. He ordered us to take a seat. Evy and I sat in complete disbelief. She looked at her watch and muttered, “We’re going to miss this bus.” I nodded knowing this to be true. My stomach was churning around and my worst fear was that this guy was going to somehow call my mother. I could hear her admonitions in my head: When you get in trouble at school, you get in worse trouble at home. Do you understand me?
The store detective at Carson Pirie Scott came back into the empty little room where Evy and I sat with hands folded in our laps. He was followed by a short plump woman wearing a security uniform. “Seems you girls have been caught shoplifting according to Mr. Snelling.” We both stared blankly. She ordered us to stand, and systematically patted us both down, searched our purses, and the bag Evy had with a purchase from another store. She even reached up through our pants legs and under our shirts to check to see if other clothing was lurking beneath. She looked over at Mr. Snelling and shook her head. He nodded over at us and said, “Look at their hands.” The woman saw right away that we were both wearing the exact same rings. They were shiny new and she suspiciously asked, “Where did you get those rings, girls?” I blurted out the story of purchasing them at the jewelry counter. I told her that the clerk could tell her that what I was saying was true. “Where are the receipts?” she asked. My stomach lurched as a picture of us crumpling up the bags and receipts and throwing them in the trash popped into my head. “I can find the receipts,” I claimed. The woman and Mr. Snelling looked at each other. He shrugged to indicate he didn’t care whether she let me go look or not and she said, “You go find the receipts, but your friend stays here.” I took off and ran down the main aisle of the store. The jewelry counter was right at the entrance to the mall and so was the trash can. There was no one at the counter so I thrashed around through the trash to find our bags. Inside were both receipts, which I clutched tightly in my fist as I ran back to the security office.
It then didn’t take long to get everything straightened out. The woman dismissed us and we left the security office. “Oh my god!” I exclaimed, “Where’s Sandy?” I’d completely forgotten about her throughout our ordeal and wondered if she was still in the bathroom. Evy and I picked up the pace as we hurried by the customer service desk. As we passed the outer door to the store where we would meet the bus, I looked outside and saw her sitting by herself in the shelter of the eaves of the building. We pushed through the double doors and inhaled our first breaths of fresh air in over three hours. We had about a half hour to wait for the next bus. We plunked down on either side of Sandy and poured out our tale. She was properly aghast and sympathetic to what we’d gone through.
When we arrived back home, we went to Evy’s house to show her mom our rings. We also told her the whole story of the store detective and what had happened. Mrs. Batstone was so outraged by the treatment and injustice she got out the phone book and looked up the number for Carson Pirie Scott. “I do over one hundred dollars worth of business there each month but you can be sure I won’t be doing business with you any longer after the incomprehensible treatment my daughters received today.” (I loved that part—her including me as one of her daughters.) She hung up the phone and continued to rant to us about adults in so-called power positions taking advantage of children. “Getting off on intimidating children—oh yes, what a powerful man,” she said facetiously. We thought it was so wonderful her standing up for us, threatening big bad Carson Pirie Scott & Co., and genuinely being on our side.
The scene was a little different at my house. With fury in her tone, Mom said, “Well, you shouldn’t have thrown out those receipts. Don’t you know that you NEVER throw away receipts before leaving a store? It’s absolutely idiotic what you did and you deserved to be treated like common criminals.” I hung my head in shame thinking about what a screw-up I was.
Later in the evening, after our parents had gone to the basement to watch some sporting event on TV, Sandy confessed that she had actually shoplifted about fifty dollars worth of items and still had the twenty her mother had given her. She’d apparently gone into the dressing room and put on the clothes and then redressed over the top of a stolen pair of panties, bra, shorts, and two tops. She’d also slipped a couple of bracelets on her arms and a new pair of gold-hoop earrings. She thought herself very clever, and the whole thing quite hilarious. But, I was not amused.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2015
