The man walks through the mall just window shopping when he decides to hit the food court for some food. He steps up to a likely counter and is lucky that there was nobody waiting to order. Once he starts looking at the menu to figure out what he is in the mood for others start coming up behind him. He decides to step aside to let others go ahead since he is still deciding.
At that point a young woman walks up and steps in front of him and begins stepping all over his feet because he is still near the counter. Surprised at the callous behavior he stands there a second shocked. After she continues to step all over his feet he reaches for her and grips under the arms and sets her to the side saying, "Please wait your turn and stop stepping on my feet." He moves forward to keep her from moving back and she starts in with, "Who do you think you are that you can touch me, picking me up and moving me like some child?" "If you act that way you should be treated that way and besides no one just gets to walk straight to the front while others are waiting already young lady. Try being more respectful to others and you might be treated like an adult."
She gets all indignant and bratty trying to get under his skin, "Who do you think you are telling Me I'm not an adult. You old fart!"
"Exactly." He replies. "I'm old enough to be your father and know that you are acting like a child that deserves a spanking. But instead of that I'm going to be an actual Adult and leave rather than ruining those nice folks' day any further by talking to a child that doesn't know how to behave in polite society." He says gesturing at the people around and at her at the end. With that he walks away, head held high. The crowd starts clapping. He leaves her standing mouth agape and shamed in front of all those people clapping.
He goes back to window shopping until he decides to pop into a men's store and looks at some jeans, but realizes quickly that they are just jeans. Why should he pay $50 for jeans when he gets ones for $15 -- 20 that are just as good if not better. He walks out shaking his head thinking, 'What was I thinking. Let's find somewhere else to go.' He strolls down the walkway and just glances into places. He walks past a stairwell, goes down and notes a sign for the bathrooms. He begins to go down the steps but stops before getting there hearing voices. Something makes him stop and listen briefly. He recognises a nasty voice from 30 minutes before whining to some other girl. He decides to get out of there not interested in getting into something else with that Brat. Going back to window shopping again, he pops into the game store but doesn't find anything he likes so heads out again. Unknowingly stepping out in front of the 'Rude' girl and her BFF.
They begin shadowing him whispering to each other. "That's the dickhead that embarrassed me at the food court. We need to get him back." Her friend, just going along as usual just says, "Yeah." They continue following him. The rude girl finally catches sight of the clipped knife in his front pants pocket and says to her accomplice, "Grab his knife from his pocket. Maybe if he loses something important to him, maybe he will feel my pain too." "But why do I have to do it and not You, it's your revenge." She questions. "He knows me and I couldn't get close to do it, he doesn't know you. The 'Rude' girl replies. "But Anna, if he catches Me he will just run me to the cops. They are all over the Mall, you know." "Just do it and stop arguing." Anna says to her BFF in that bullying tone she was so familiar with as she brooked no further argument.
The BFF sighed and moved away from Anna some to be able to get nearer their target. Anna stayed near enough to see everything but not give her friend away. The BFF began getting closer to him slowly so she could reach out and slip it from his pocket and still get away. She reached out after another minute and attempted to get the knife from his pocket, but as soon as she grasped the knife she felt a hand grab hers as he was in his pocket. He pulls the hand away from his pocket, lifting her hand over her head spinning her around until it was pinned behind her back where she wasn't going anywhere. He looks at who he has, not knowing who yet he has caught in the act. Stopping to assess the situation, he sees a familiar face slinking away, 'Rude' girl.
He looks back at the culprit with new interest. "You must be the other voice I heard talking to your rude friend that just left you hanging slinking away like a rat. Who are you, what's your name?" He says sternly. "Nobody. I'm sorry, Please let me go and you will never see me again." She pleads. "I won't ask again, what's your name & for that matter how old are you?"
"W-What? M-my name is Kate, my friend is Anna, I'm 19. But why do you need to know that?" "To know if you are a juvenile delinquent or an adult. One would go to Juvie hall or an adult going to jail." "J-jail." She stutters, "Why would I go to Jail?" "Theft is a crime. Even a 19 year old should know that by now. And is Anna 19 also?" "Uhuh, no next 'til next month." "Ok, so she is still an adult too. And can be punished as such. Let's go to the police then, it's this way." He says changing his grip to her elbow. "But, but, I can't go to jail. My parents would kill me." "Doesn't matter to me, crimes deserve to be punished. Let's go." She stops trying to convince him seeing the same resolve she hears from her parents.
Having walked the mall since late morning and most of the early afternoon he knew his buddy was working today and made for him. When he got there he made his greeting more like a professional relationship. "Afternoon Sgt. Gentry, I have a criminal for you. This young woman tried to pick my pocket trying to steal my pocket knife and who knows what else." "Well sir, that's quite a serious accusation. Do you want to press charges?" The Sgt. moves to grab his notepad to take notes of the facts playing along with his friend and looks forward to hearing the story later. With a stern expression he looks at the girl saying, "Well, young lady what do you have to say for yourself? He has every right to press charges."
At first she says nothing. Then she tries to say something but can't get anything out and she looks like a fish just moving her mouth open and closed. Finally she gets out, "It was a stupid dare and revenge because of my friend." She then goes quiet and looks at the ground realizing how lame that sounded. "So you admit you tried to steal from this man. Well, that makes things easier. A confession makes it quite easy at court." She then looks up, horrified. " I, I, I can't go to jail!" She whines nearly crying.
The officer looks at his friend realizing the situation may have been taken too far. He then says with a small shake of the head, "So do you want to press charges sir?" He smiles and replies, "Well, I suppose that no harm was really done. I will deal with this myself with these two delinquents. I already had to dress down her friend at the food court for her being so rude. She was probably embarrassed and thought she could get away with retaliation and not pay any cost but got her friend caught and then she ran away." "Oh, I heard about that. Some of the patrons that were there thought it was great someone stood up these spoiled brats and taught her some manners." Kate just stood there abashed and now realizes her friend really did behave badly as she seemed to be doing alot lately.