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What’s the street value of toothpaste?

By Ed Goldman

You (and any law officer reading this) should rest assured I never used this quirky bit of expertise to actually steal anything. I just liked knowing I could if I wanted (and if I’d wanted, in tandem with that, to do time).

A guy my dad knew, when he became a claims adjuster as his second career, taught me how to do it one evening when he came to our home for dinner.  I’m sure my folks were less than thrilled when their guest—he was a furniture refinisher in L.A. but in his youth, had been a burglar in  Brooklyn—regaled their gape-jawed 12-year-old with what they considered his tales of derring-don’t. But when he went out to his car and came back with a box full of locks and rings of keys he’d managed to amass in his early years—and found me such an eager and, weirdly, adept pupil, they kind of relaxed. He kept reassuring them, “Bob and Betty, nobody even uses these kinds of keys or locks anymore.” So he gave me, with Mom and Dad’s approval, a small ring of keys.

The next day, when I came home from school and my parents were still at work, I fumbled around with my new toys, unlocked our front door and went inside. I was exhilarated. I wanted to take out ads on TV and radio saying, “NEED A BREAK-IN FOR INSURANCE PURPOSES? THIS PRE-TEEN MAY BE YOUR SOLUTION.” But I wisely told no one what I’d done, except for my brother Stuart and about a dozen of my friends.

Lock-picking, if that’s what it was, came in handy when I or someone I was in the company of got locked out of a car, home or even office. And it was definitely a gift with planned-obsolescence built into it. Once electronics took over the field of security, even on the domestic front, my gifts were outmoded.

To clarify, I wasn’t smart enough to break into a smart-home.

Nor I could ever open safes—even sometimes when I had the combination. We’re not talking about my having a robust underground skill-set here.

Yet when I go to Safeway to buy, among other goods, vodka, Advil PM and toothpaste, I need to have three separate cases unlocked. Each requires me to walk down the individual aisle where it’s kept and punch a glowing button, which responds with a cheerful woman’s voice thanking me for shopping at Safeway and promising me that someone will be there in “just a moment” to assist me.

This may be how it works if you choose to go shopping when no one else does. If you venture over in late afternoon or mid-evening, when the store is bustling with customers, your wait is likely to extend past “just a moment.” Try 10 to 15 minutes. And then, just hope the first responder has keys to all of the cases containing your desired goods, and that there aren’t others waiting at any or all of those cases for the same employee.

I already knew that if I want to use the bathroom in my Safeway store, that requires not only someone to be summoned to unlock the door but also for it to be announced over the store’s public address system, the way they page someone to clean up a spill in Aisle 9. Fortunately, no one announces what your specific anatomical intention is when calling for someone to accommodate “customer at restroom.” Not yet, that is. I half-expect to hear, “Customer has to go Number Two, please hurry” any day now.

I asked one of the store’s employees the other day what had prompted the sudden attention, at many grocery stores, to keeping merch under lock and key. He told me this particular store had suffered “more than $50,000 in thefts” in just one week. 

While I believe the employee, I’m finding the human race a little unbelievable. I get why booze and even some over-the-counter drugs might be objects of desire. But what’s the street value of a tube of Crest Toothpaste, even with added brighteners? Can it be crushed into some sort of minty-fresh methamphetamine? Gum-strengthening fentanyl?

COP 1 (Looking at a corpse ): Well, this perp finally got what he deserved. Why couldn’t he just buy a generic brand of toothpaste? I mean, I myself buy Generic Bismol when my stomach ain’t so good. What a waste. 

COP #2: But ya gotta admit, that last breath he took smelled kind of nice.