Where's the palm tree?

Every time I tell someone that I work in retail, I inevitably get asked, "Have you ever had anyone steal anything?!"

My answer as of Monday morning was "No."

This woman didn't just swipe a tiny jar candle or a car jar.

This chick took the giant palm tree:

She walks in with a kid in a stroller and two older girls (maybe 7 and 8ish?) in tow. She asked me if the giant snowman ...

was for sale.

Me: "It is, but we're not allowed to sell the holiday props until after Thanksgiving. And unfortunately, it has already been claimed by another customer."

She responds, I suppose, but it wasn't memorable. She went towards the back of the store, and I moved on to help two other ladies who were trying to pick out some candles for a coupon. As I was ringing one of them up, or helping them somehow, the woman yells at her daughters to hurry up because they need to leave.

You know how some people stick in your mind because they just give you a super weird vibe? As she was walking out of the store, the woman just stared at me. Her face was super red, and she looked oddly guilty and weird. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I remember being slightly weirded out by her as she left.

Anyway, after the ladies I was helping left, I looked over and the palm tree was ... gone. It was just gone. I mean, you can't misplace a 2.5-foot tall palm tree.

When my manager got off the phone, I told her it was missing. After scouring videotape footage, we saw her.

She wheeled the stroller around behind the display, picked up the palm tree, looked at it for a few seconds, walked around to the front of her stroller, picked the baby up out of the stroller and put the palm tree inside the stroller. During this whole time, her oldest daughter was moving things around in the back of the stroller.

Who does that with their children watching. Not only watching, but helping her!

So now when I get asked if I've ever seen anyone shoplift, I can honestly say that I have. Go figure that she'd take the palm tree.