Don't Lynch Me, Bro!

I was standing in line to checkout at the Bloom the other day when a curious thing happened. The checkout girl stopped scanning the merchandise, turned from the door where she'd been looking, and said to the bag boy, "That woman just walked in, grabbed a banana and walked out!" As she turns back to scanning my things, she says, "You wouldn't believe the things we see people try to take outta here without paying."

Apparently, she wasn't exaggerating because when I picked up the newspaper yesterday, I was confronted with this headline: "Shoplifter Accuses Employees of Lynching." Naturally, I had to read on. According to the article, this guy went into the local Ingles, grabbed himself a soda and a snack (totaling $3.27) and headed to the bathroom, where he ate his snack and drank his drink. Then, when the Ingles employees confronted him, he ran away because the store employees were "trying to lynch him." When officers arrived on the scene, he continued this storyline, insisting that the two Ingles clerks were trying to lynch him.

Now, the Eastwick News couldn't just stop there; they had to elaborate on the situation--as if there were some small possibility that the Ingles clerks were in fact trying to lynch a man in broad daylight in the middle of the store--by providing the definition of lynching:

"In Stupid State, the legal standard for lynching is met when two or more people engage in an act of premeditated violence."

Thanks for clearing that up, people, because I really was concerned that Ingles is the secret cover agency of the KKK and that they are actively lynching customers--not just trying to reduce shoplifting or make people pay for merchandise.

PS: This is why I shop across town at the Bloom or Publix--even though the Ingles is right down the street. Yes, I'm a grocery store snob.