A store employee followed me for forty minutes, accused me of stealing in front of a security guard, then found nothing. What I did with my bags of stuff made her regret ever opening her mouth. I’d just closed on my first apartment and wanted to make it feel like mine, so I hit up a home goods store nearby with a mental list and a full cart’s worth of ambition. Curtains, frames, little decor pieces, the fun stuff you buy once and use for years. I noticed the tail almost immediately. An employee hovering two aisles over, then one aisle over, then directly behind me pretending to straighten shelves that were already straight. I tried approaching to ask about a product, genuinely, and she practically speed walked away toward another section. I kept shopping. She kept orbiting. By checkout I’d filled the cart completely, close to $120 worth of items, folded neatly, scanned one by one, paid in full. I noticed her posted near the exit as I finished but figured she just worked that area. As I stepped away from the register, she stopped me. Said she’d “been watching me the whole time” and needed to see inside my bag, a small crossbody purse that fit exactly a wallet and a set of keys, nothing else. I actually laughed, assuming she was joking. She wasn’t. Said if I refused, she’d call security to escalate it. So I dumped it out. Right there, receipt still in hand, bags of paid merchandise sitting at my feet. Wallet. Keys. That’s it. The turn: I zipped my purse back up, looked her dead in the eye, and asked to be taken straight to returns. She backpedaled instantly, said it “wasn’t necessary,” tried to wave it off like the accusation never happened…