Gonna need that rite aid banning story š
Ahaha alright Iāll share.
I was in middle school at the time in the U.S. (did most of my schooling there because of my dad) and I was honestly such a delinquent. My friends and I were super sketchy 7th/8th graders who usually got away with doing a lot of things we werenāt supposed to be doing. One day a guy we were hanging out with, will call him Nate I donāt even remember his name, had the brilliant idea that we should steal snacks from a Rite Aid. I donāt know why Rite Aid was his first pick or why so many kids I knew were really into stealing things at the time (it really was a weird phenomenon I noticed. Donāt know what type of adrenaline rush we as middle schoolers thought we needed but whatever) but we saidĀ āwhy not? Not like consequences are a thingā and went along to the Rite Aid after school (five of us in total).
When we arrived at the Rite Aid, my best friend at the time, Jay, started very openly packing gummy bears into our other friendās bag and I started getting pretty nervous because I remembered that the law is real. I remember walking over to the candle aisle to sniff candles for some odd reason, and the two friends who had just swiped the gummy bears joined me. I hadnāt seen Nate or the other friend for a while at this point and suddenly, in the middle of my very calming candle smell session, I hear this lady behind us yelling just distraught. I mean she was on the edge of tears and she was walking right towards the 3 of us so angrily. She started screaming at us to get out because she had seen our friend, Nate, steal some hot sauce and they now apparently were holding him in the back waiting for the police to come. Our other friend that had been lingering somewhere else in the store joined us as we walked out. The lady told us that we were under no circumstances ever allowed back into that Rite Aid again or theyād call the police. It was honestly my first and last time at a Rite Aid at that point of my life so no big loss. But it doesnāt end there.
We run, paranoid, to another friendās house, honestly just hoping Nate wouldnāt rat us out. Jay and the other friend got away with their gummy bear heist at least but I was terrified the police would find us for some reason. Thirty minutes go by, and suddenly, thereās a knock at the door. The friend whoās house it was opens it and in comes stumbling Nate completely out of breath. It turns out, they let go of him for a second in the back room and he made a break for it. This 7th grader ran away from Rite Aid employees to escape being questioned about hot sauce that he claimed to us he was actually just looking at. Anyway, my anxiety??? Through the roof. Spent days on legal websites to determine if I could still get in trouble after the fact and worried my parents would somehow find out.
About 5 years later after a wisdom teeth surgery, I had to pick up my perscription at, yes, that exact Rite Aid. I really wasnāt too worried about getting recognized considering it had been 5 years and Iām sure they had no actual visual record of us being there that they would have kept. Though 1% of me did think that maybe that really emotional Rite Aid lady had been waiting for some form of revenge all that time. I walked in with my banged up mouth, picked up my percription and burt bees chapstick (that the cashier gave me a coupon for, much love) and was on my way.
And thatās the story of how I got banned from a Rite Aid and technically violated that banishment like 5 years later.
