Quit Frontin': I Swear I Didn't Steal Anything

The Wife: "Honey? Why did we have six bottles of wine?

Me: "Because I purchased six bottles of wine. I didn't even steal anything either. That guy at the corner store is fucking racist, you know?!"

The Wife: "Oh, honey...how is the guy at the store a racist this time?"

Me: "He followed me like I was going to steal something. I couldn't focus. I showed him."

The Wife: "So why do we have a half case of wine now?"

Me: "To prove to him that I wasn't stealing beef jerky!"

This is the story of my life since forever. I go somewhere to shop--or, worse, just to look--and feel the watch-the-thieving-darkie vibe and I totally overcompensate by spending all my money to prove what? That I'm not stealing TicTacs. That's why I have a snowboard. I was just looking for gloves and that bitch kept offering help where nobody needed any goddamn help. That's why my wife has fucking $500 emerald earrings...was just looking for a $20 stocking stuffer one Christmas and felt someone sigh when I came in. This is why I own two 55-200mm telephoto lenses and more fucking AA batteries than could power all the remote controls in all the suburbs of America because I ain't stealing your fucking batteries, asshole, I'm actually buying 9 8-packs, OK? And that's why we have five unopened bottles of wine right now because the old guy kept following me and watching my every move. Offering to help.

I'm the fucking worst, too. I can feel it on my neck, the prying eyeballs upon me, watching my hands as I move up and down aisles. I sometimes place my hands on top of my head just to demonstrate that I ain't stealin'! Sometimes, when I'm full of the obstinance, I keep putting my hands in and out of all my pockets and touching everything. When a shop keep stumbles upon me watching them watching me, there's always an asinine, "can I help you find something?" Oh, now you're asking me if I need any help after following me around for 10 minutes. Now you ask. "No thanks." But still they follow like the fucking CIA or a PI my wife hired to see if I was fucking men on the DL.

I always figure that if just walk out, belligerent or not, I will be labeled a shoplifter or, worse, that shoplifting nigger. I can never just walk. I have to buy something and usually something expensive to demonstrate my honesty and solid status as someone (me) who can afford this ($300 art pillows I didn't want) is definitely not stealing your cheap ass earrings. Fuck. You! Stop pretending to help me.

"One man's ceiling is another man's floor."

-"What Comes Around"
from Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys

Of course there's the feeling of negligence and discrimination that comes with being ignored in a place of business too, especially if one perceives that The White People, the Asians, and the Indians (dot) are being helped out some kind of first-come order. But, there again, lies my weakness of being labeled. I'll still demonstrate-shop as proof of my pedigree. And I'll always use my black diamond preferred rewards credit card, flinging it cavalierly onto the counter and smiling at security cameras and other shoppers who think I'm fucking nuts because, look at me, I shop like this everywhere I go every fucking day and I never steal because, look, I'm using a premium credit card with MY NAME ON IT! Me? Oh, dear...ha-ha! I'm rich first and just happen to be black. Why don't you go follow those young blacks or those wiggers or those poor looking blacks because even I know they steal like gypsies.

There are places that make their overhead again and again because I perceive that they believe that I am shoplifting something. I am so fucked.

Quit frontin' too!