The Thief, First Person
“Boring teeth, boring teeth,” I think out loud, as I step out of the summer sun into the Walgreens. I rub my tongue back and forth over my upper incisors, feeling the smoothness. My teeth are fairly straight and fairly white; my gums a decent shade of pink. I have no idea how to make my teeth more interesting. Aren't teeth supposed to be flawless? That's supposed to make them the most interesting teeth, ever. What am I here for again?
Snacks. Birthday cards. Feminine hygiene. Pharmacy meds. Okay, snacks is a decent start. I like Doritos, grab a bag; no, the Family Size bag. I wander further down the aisle.
Hair-spray. Deodorant. Toothpaste. There are a dozen brands of toothpaste. What do I have at home? “Mmmm. Pepsodent. Heh!” I laugh to myself, my own personal inside joke. I haven't used Pepsodent in years. Colgate, perhaps? But Colgate-what? There are like 4 Colgates. I don't care. I grab one. I grab another so I don't have to come back in here for a while.
I take a turn down a different aisle. This one's mostly cleaning supplies. Compact fluorescent light bulbs, perfect. They're bright as hell. Al Gore said they save the planet. They have white and they have off-white and they have blue. What if my teeth were a different color like blue? Even smurfs don't have blue teeth. I would be Time magazine's godamn man of the year if I had blue teeth. Maybe then she wouldn't say I had boring teeth. I skip the blue light bulbs, grab a white one. My hands are full, or I would grab like four of these.
I need a basket. Back up the aisle, through the front door, there it is. There's purpose in my stride, and I step out into the sun again. Everything goes in the basket. Now I can buy whatever I want.
“Hey,” says a stern voice behind me, “I think you better stay right where you are, son. Sam, yeah I got him, and he sure is that same punk kid.” His radio mumbles something, and Mr. Guard tells me to sit down on the curb.
The Thief, Third Person
A wayward soul floats on the stifling summer air, chancing through the Walgreens' front door. His long-sleeve jacket with the hood pulled up just about screams “shoplifter”. Sam the manager glances up from his Farmville efforts in the back room to the security feed on the monitors. It's the same guy as last week!
The intercom pisses out some kind of pipe-fed noise called Muzak into the store from speakers embedded above. The theme today, like every other day, is elevator music. The piss-music is interrupted, “Marvin to the office.” The wayward soul falters a step as he considers whether the words “Marvin” or “office” might have anything to do with him. Of course no one in the store would be calling out to him, so the wayward soul drifts down an aisle or two, snatching items from the shelves haphazardly. Toothpaste, a bag of chips, and a box of light bulbs jostle for finger-holds in his hands.
Old Man Marvin, in his blue rent-a-cop outfit, stands behind Sam. He speaks into the radio on his shoulder, “Sam, why don't you try the radio. I'm right the fuck behind you.”
Sam, still seated, picks up his own radio, speaking into it as he turns around in his chair, “Smart ass.” Sam taps on the TV, pointing at camera four. “There he is again, Marvin. And oh! Oh! Right for the door!”
Marvin is out of that back room before Sam can even get the chance to boss him around. Marvin knows his job. He's been put here on God's Green Earth for one reason and one reason alone: to beat the snot out of this little shithead, should he resist arrest of course. Marvin catches up to the shithead in the green hooded jacket right outside the door. “Hey I think you better stay right where you are, son,” he says to his thief. All that evidence, right in the basket, how perfect, thinks Marvin. To Marvin's great disappointment, the thief turns around slowly. “Sam, yeah I got him, and he sure is that same punk kid. Sit down, punk!”
