As I waited for my ride out of town this past Saturday afternoon, passing the time watching EMTs and police securing the scene of a drug-related handgun fatality, I was looking forward to a Harm City free weekend. However, it seems, once one has taken up a quest for enlightenment, that the quest seems to know when your desire has flagged, and, like a seductress that has failed to turn your head subtly, resorts to gross action to suck you in.

Upon leaving the cemetery for our family Mother’s Day observance, we were cruising through the rarified environs of East Baltimore, just above Charles’ benighted enclave, when our view of the post-industrial wasteland was fouled, if you can believe that. Yes 400 pounds of cottage cheese had been stuffed—in the form of a woman—into spandex! It was a sight so morbid that it begged the question in my mind, ‘What purpose, evolutionary or divine, could that serve?’

Later on at dinner I was fated to find out. I was speaking with a friend of the family about my Harm City page when she admitted to having worked security, at a K-Mart in Pompano Beach Florida in 1985 and 86. Dee is her name, on her way back to Tennessee as I type this, and she did not have to be asked for her craziest shoplifter story:

“The wildest thing I ever saw was this very large Haitian woman in a big billowy dress squat down on a television, and when she stood up it was gone!

“She must have gone at least three-hundred pounds and was five and a half feet tall. I was one-hundred and-twenty, and no way was I getting in her way.

“The male security guard stepped in front of her, and she lowered her head, and rammed him. You never could tell by her walking or her ramming that she had a TV between her legs.

“Now the Haitians, they were good for it. Supervision and management did not believe me, and had me drug-tested.

“Could you blame them, really? Who would have thought of such a thing? But there we were, myself and five others: manager, supervisor, and other security personnel, watching it on tape—and when she stood up, it was gone!”

Dee was still shocked over this memory three decades on. Imagine our shock when my sister pulled up a video online of a gypsy chick—a little thin woman—walking out of a liquor store with a case of premium stout between her legs! There were over ten references to women stealing with their thighs, one involving a woman walking out of a store with a case of water between her legs. I have dealt with a lot of shoplifting. The fact that a certain technique is found being used on cheap heavy items is an indicator of widespread use in the illegal acquisition of more expensive items of similar mass by the same means.

Do the water and alcohol thefts merely constitute training; field maneuvers for shoplifters serving an apprenticeship? According to my sister’s search this may well be so. She mentioned 10 articles indicating 42-inch TVs as known targets for this crime.

What are the other implications of this practice?

What type of training, if any, does this require?

Does the practice in any way compromise the resale value of the appliance or, um, beverage?

Could these women just be practicing for larger crimes, shoplifting penalties slight as they are?

Could these ladies be prostitute/assassins being trained to crush a senatorial pelvis, or kill CIA operatives anaconda-like when they least expect it?

Could rocket launchers, assault rifles or WMD’s be hauled in this manner?

This line of thought brought me full circle to the gelatinous beauty in spandex I saw earlier in the day. Perhaps Home Land Security—or Wal-Mart for that matter—might decree and enforce dress codes stipulating the wearing of form-fitting clothes as a security precaution, at least at airports or supercenters.

As an archival note, I would like to claim credit, through my on–the-ground informant Dee, for documenting the first known case of ‘ass-lifting’. I know that witnesses claim that this is purely a means of grasping with the thighs. However, this is supposition, as no one truly knows what is going on under those prodigious skirts; such as a midget suspended in a harness. Based on the use of male posteriors to haul weapons into prison, up to and including a hand grenade, I do not think a prudent researcher should disregard the possibility—nigh probability—of other muscles being employed in this unsavory larcenous practice.

If you have anything to add to this subject, particularly video links or statements by members of the Haitian Women’s Retail Power-lifting Association please regale us.

Expiring minds want to know.