Prompt time: What Would You Shoplift?

Hey y’all, I’m back today with… a writing prompt!

 

From my book, of course.

So, here’s the prompt I randomly decided to pick out for today.

What would you shoplift?

It made me think of The Purge for some reason, I don’t know.

Anyway, here’s just what I wrote ‘in response’!

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It’s eleven fifty-seven, Thanksgiving night. No, wait, scratch that… eleven fifty-eight, Black Friday Eve.

There’s a woman holding a crying baby on my right. She’s trying to frantically bounce him in her arms, but it’s not going to work in this loud, antsy crowd.

She won’t last long.

To my left is a woman of elderly age, her hair short, curly, and grey. She’s holding a cane in one hand and removing her hearing aids with the other.

I’ll have to watch out for her.

In front of me is the back of a man even taller than myself, his hands in his pockets and his posture seeming cool and collected.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

Just then, I hear another woman roar out in excitement at the front of the herd.

The doors have opened.

Almost instantaneously, every single body in front of me rushes forward, and the ones behind me slam into my backside. My legs kick into high gear, and I take wide strides through the gates ahead. After that, I pause and glance hurriedly around at my new surroundings.

There’s mountains of television boxes and PlayStation consoles for what seemed like miles all around and shelves upon shelves of Barbie dream houses, baby dolls, Hot Wheels, Lego kits, Spiderman action figures, remote helicopters, NERF guns, karaoke machines, oversized stuffed rabbits, toddler-sized kitchen playsets, and board games like Trouble, Sorry, Clue, Life, Operation, Scrabble, and Candy Land stretched the floor ahead.

Right after that, a young woman in her twenties rams into my side.

“Move!” she yells, pushing her way towards the crowd forming around the mountain of packaged Beats headphones nearby on my right.

Immediately then, I turn to the left and take off with the mob once more.

I make my way past aisles and aisles full of useless merchandise like glassware, rugs, bathroom towels, greeting cards, and photo albums, all things that serve absolutely no purpose to this store on a day like today.

After all of that, I begin to slow down and approach the side of an aisle that stocks only grocery items on any other holiday… but, today, it stocks both groceries and heavily discounted electronics.

Yes, this is what I came for.

I rush into the aisle and push past a number of individuals, all of whom are throwing their hands at every item on the shelves that isn’t a bag of flour or a jar of mayonnaise.

Just as I approach a blockade of backs, a teenaged boy steps in front of me and snatches an Adele CD from the shelf directly beside my nose.

“Oh, she’s just gonna love me for this!” he remarks, his voice surprisingly high-pitched for his slightly burly size. He then turns around and sprints away from the clustering pack surrounding us.

I look to the already half empty ledge on my left, right beside where the boy had retrieved his own merchandise, and begin to search for the exact item I came here for, an item that would not usually be taken lightly if stolen, but on a night like this one, I’m sure it wouldn’t put much of a dent in the shop’s sales if I were to take it… which I plan to.

And then I find it!

I swipe it from the shelf before any other soul even has the chance to lay a finger on it and shove it into the pocket of my black windbreaker. The space for it there is small, but I can and will make it work.

I spin myself around and rush out of the aisle, bumping into a few angry unfortunates that didn’t make it to the newly released DVDs in time on the way. Once back to the main path of the store, which was efficiently thinning by now, I witness a middle-aged woman yelling in distress as a store associate repossesses her cart, which is filled to the brim with pink, plastic-covered baskets containing multicolored bath bombs and salts. It’s a sad sight to see, but she should have known that the store banned the use of shopping carts on this specific occasion two years ago, right after there had been several lawsuits filed against them for the twisted ankles and foot injuries they had caused numerous people.

I continue towards the front of the store, my hand keeping my hidden item in place all the while.

Once there, then, I step into a line full of people carrying white plastic bags, all moving into the direction of the exit.

But then a loud beep sounds off, and I look straight ahead to see a man pulled aside by a store worker, who was taking the plastic bag from his hands without question.

My heart begins to pound, but I also start to convince myself that I will not be caught. I could not be caught.

I push on with the leaving crowd and keep my head straight as I pass the man left standing and on the verge of tears after having part of his merchandise removed from his shopping bag by the worker. I take a deep breath, then, and step past the open doors.

And… I’m out!

I let out a sigh of relief and turn to step along the sidewalk, all the people around me dispersing into the dark parking lot ahead.

Before I retreat to my own vehicle, though, I stop and smile as I pull my beautiful prize from my pocket: a small, yellow plastic bag with the illustration of a little house in one corner, and the words ‘Milk Chocolate Chips’ spread out across the center.

This is exactly what I came for.

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Haha.

Hope you guys liked it… let me know what you thought!

-iKari