We Use Grocery Store Coupons

I have been in the retail business for over ten years, and it still erks me to no end that people still have the gall to come into the store and steal something they do not have the right to take. Next to the price of Gasoline, shoplifting causes the most dramatic increases on the goods we buy and consume. I see the remnants of it happening everyday.

I will walk down an isle and find an open bag of chips that is still half full. I have found empty boxes of pain pills like aspirin and Tylenol. I have even found empty boxes that once held pregnancy tests and a box of condoms that were only missing two of the twelve. It amazes me what people take. I have seen people leave packaging of ground beef on the shelf, and I wonder where they put that meat once they got it out of the package.

When people shoplift, we all end up paying for it. Grocery Stores loose tens of thousands of dollars each year in shoplifted merchandise. Because the stores loose that money, they are forced to pass that loss over to you and me. That means our cost of food goes up. I don't know about you, but that makes me mad. It means I cannot afford the amount of food that I should be able to put on the table in front of my kids.

Shoplifters are not the only culprits either. There are a number of you honest people out there who pay for every single grocery they take out of the store. You just refuse to put back everything you decide you don't want, or at least give it to one of the employees. I don't know how many times I find a warm package of meat, or milk, or cheese or any other product that is supposed to stay refrigerated. Because you don't tell anyone that product needs to go back to its cooler, the grocery store ends up tossing it, loosing money in the meantime, forcing our grocery prices to go up.

If you are a shoplifter, please stop stealing from me. If you are just a thoughtless shopper, please don't let cold items get warm by setting them anywhere. Please give it to an employee. This way we can all pay a little less on our grocery bill.