The Toothbrush Incident
Requested via comments on the chat box According to AsiaOneNews:
MY FAMILY and I do our grocery shopping at the FairP*** (censored hehe) supermarket in Sembawang as the staff there are usually very helpful and family-friendly.
But last week, one unpleasant incident happened which traumatised my wife so much that she now refuses to step into the supermarket.
She had gone to the supermarket with our two-year-old daughter, together with a few relatives and their children.
My daughter told my wife that she wanted a new toothbrush, and my wife agreed to buy her one. So, my daughter took one from the shelf and held it in her hand while my wife continued shopping for other things.
While queuing with my wife at the cashier, my daughter got bored and joined her cousins outside the store – they had already finished their shopping and were waiting outside the supermarket.
My daughter, and my wife, forgot that she was still holding onto the toothbrush. My wife left the store after making payment and then saw my daughter holding the toothbrush.
She quickly went back to the cashier with my daughter to pay for it.
A supervisor arrived and told my wife not to queue up at the cashier but to follow her to a room.
While in the room, my wife told my daughter that she should not take unpaid merchandise outside a store, but the supervisor interrupted her and told my wife that it was not my daughter’s fault but my wife’s fault instead.
She started telling my wife that it is her duty to teach her child. At the same time, she kept questioning my wife as though she were a thief.
She asked for my wife’s IC number, our home address and my name.
If my wife had really been a thief, she would not have gone back to the store to queue up and pay for the $3.50 toothbrush.
I hope the management of FairP*** is aware of the supervisor’s behaviour, and that it would do something about it.
What’s wrong with this picture? Hmmm The fact that this supermarket are going into the extreme to protect it’s supermarket from a $3.50 toothbrush and wasted precious time lecturing one small incident instead of giving a verbal warning as they commit no crime but just “accidentally” forgets to pay for the toothbrush and went BACK to pay for it.
My imagination went berserk on why it happened
- Maybe the supervisor was very bored
- Maybe the supervisor got scolded previously for his inability to catch many shop lifting incidents and want to make a example of a “easy” case.
- Maybe the supervisor just reach the “red” day of that month (Big Auntie Arrive! – PMS)
- Maybe the boss of the supervisor watching from afar and want to give a good “show”.
Things might had happen if this continues
- Supermarket’s reputation drops!
- Real shoplifter use the same plan to distract the supervisor with “returned” toothbrush and get many accomplice to steal other more expensive items while the supervisor is in the room interrogating ‘innocent kid & mother” (Classic luring enemy away technique)
- They may install RFID tags on all products with security alarm at the entrance & exit
- they may put more powerful CCTV at the exit and entrance with 10 supervisors to monitor the monitors with walkies to alert security guards to “catch shoplifter” – wait…did they already did that? Hmm
Well, there might be one day we might see our toothbrush cost 2 times more due to the added cost of “ehanced” security “features” just remember to peel off the RFID chip in your banana bunch next time you go this supermarket 
