What I Heard When I Listened

“Come on, man,” I told the young man with long greasy hair, “I need you to come with me to my office in the back. I’m going to call the police and they will prosecute this as a criminal matter.” A degree in fine arts from Berkeley had earned me the privileged position of security guard at Walmart.

“What am I being charged with?” he asked.

“Shoplifting. We saw you on camera sticking that pack of underwear down your pants. That’s gross, but once you walked out the door with it, it was theft,” This was so tiring. It meant more paperwork for me at the end of my shift.

“But I was under my limit,” he insisted. “These undies are only $14.99 plus tax.”

“What limit? Are you saying that you have a store credit? If you do, you still have to check out through the cash register so we can use your credit against your purchase. Regardless, if you walk out of the store without paying for something, it’s considered theft.”

“Exactly!” he responded, “For that reason, Walmart owes everybody in America $18.89.”

“What are you talking about? How do you figure that?”

“Walmart pays its employees so little,” he said, “that American taxpayers had to pay $6.2 billion worth of food stamps, medicaid and subsidized housing to take care of them. There are 328.2 million people in the United States, so if you divide it out, that means that Walmart owes $18.89 to every man, woman and child in America. I’m just here to get mine.” Ouch. The long-haired little shoplifter had a point. They wouldn’t schedule me over thirty hours a week to avoid paying me any benefits. I was only a couple of paychecks away from having to live in my car.

“That’s not how it works,” I said. “If everybody starts stealing from Walmart, then it’ll just come out of our paychecks. It’s not going to hurt them. If you want to do something, then you’ve got to go through the proper channels, you know, lobby your congressman and stuff. Besides, it’s not a legal defense for shoplifting. You might think you’re trying to hack the system or whatever, but when you show up in court, you’re just going to be a thief. You’re white, so they’ll probably just give you a fine and probation or community service. It’s still a lot cheaper to just pay for your underwear.”

“So, you don’t think it’s okay to let people get away with theft?” he asked me.

“Obviously.”

“So why is it okay to let Walmart get away with stealing six billion dollars?”

“Look,” I said, “Why don’t you just make both our lives easier and give me the underwear back or go through the cash register and pay for it?”

“Because I’m tired of paying for corporate theft. I’m a Thegan. We have compiled a list of every company that owes money to the American public and we intend to collect.”