Unindicted Co-conspirators

Standing in line in stores is part of our daily routine here in Roanne.  One of the stores that we frequent, Lidl, sells food and all sorts of other items (power saws are on shelves next to avocados which are next to rain jackets, etc.).  Everything is discounted and each trip reveals something new for sale.  It's a great store but for the check-out line.  We theorize that the store is able to discount because it usually has only one employee  at the check-out line thus saving all kinds of employee costs.  Needless to say, when the store is full of customers, the check-out line gets pretty long, although it does provide opportunity for people watching.  Which leads to today's conspiracy.

Ahead of us in line today was a young girl of about 8 years old with her rather harried looking mother.  Dressed in bobby socks and wearing thick black-rimmed glasses, the little girl was insisting that she be allowed to purchase a little packet of colorful stationary (which she probably found next to the duct tape and the cherries).  Mama refused and put the packet aside.  The little girl obviously did not agree with the decision and put the packet back with the groceries, whereupon mother placed it again off to the side.  But his little girl had a plan.  At Lidl as in most French grocery stores, you must bring and pack your own plastic bag (the single checker could not possibly do it all), so the little girl carefully watched as Mama packed her bag and quickly placed the treasured packet back with the groceries, this time packed in between the bananas and the oranges to better conceal it.  She watched intently as the cashier rang it up and then while intently watching Mama, quickly snatched up her treasure and put it into her own bag.  Then playing the dutiful daughter she carefully packed her bag with other grocery items.  While Mama paid the checker the little girl turned to us and with the slightest of smiles and . . . winked!  Our difficulty at that moment was to not burst out laughing, but we held our own, now being part of the conspiracy.  Mama and the little girl walked away from the store and we detected the slightest bit of a spring to the little girl's steps.  She had gotten her treasure and had enlisted two adults in the process.  How could the day be any better.

Captain Randy