Kicked Out?

There is a story circulating that when my friends and I were in St. Charles, MO we were kicked out of a store.

That is not exactly the way it happened.

We actually left the store as the manager was asking us to leave.

It happened this way.

Two of us were having a conversation in one of the shoppes, with one friend explaining something to the other (what the subject was is of no import and adds nothing to the event). When the explanation was complete the store owner/manager (whoever he was) who had been listening in, said in a loud, condescending voice, "Now do you want me to tell you where you were wrong?"

Let me stop to describe the guy. Six three, 250, 55 years old, booming voice.

My friend simply said, "No," and walked away.

I saw her from a distance looking pale so I went over to her and asked, "Are you okay?"

As she related to me the above little scene, the guy followed her over to where we were and continued his verbal harangue of her. She headed for the door while I, and another of the friends, headed to the checkout line, saying nothing and looking at no one.

But he wasn't done. As she moved toward the door he loudly shouted, "Perhaps you should just leave the store." By this time shoppers had stopped to listen and gawk.

With my limited, but often helpful, social work background, I labeled the guy with a borderline personality disorder which was escalating rapidly.

At that point, the two of us in line simply put down what we were going to purchase and left the store also.

As I told the Chamber of Commerce in my email to them about the incident, had I been by myself in that situation I might have felt compelled to call law enforcement. He was getting that scary.

We were all stunned at the event and wondered aloud and to ourselves what had just happened and had we played any part in it and could the whole scene have been avoided?

I think we did the right thing by leaving. We saved a few bucks when we left our selections behind. We might have indulged him and listened to his correction of our conversation but truly we were not interested. So I suppose one could say we were kicked out of a store. Somehow I am finding it difficult to be repentant about the event.

And that's what I think about it.