When I was a kid, there was a commonly held belief in Kid Land regarding shoplifting. If a store security guy accused you of stealing but failed to find the stolen loot, they were required by department store law to make it up to you.

Specifically, the maligned kid in question was allowed to pick out any item in the store and take it home. Any item at all. For free. Because of the injustice and pain doled out at having been falsely accused.

Older boys told us this and so it had to be true. And armed with this delicious knowledge, we formulated many a scheme to get wrongly accused of stealing at the finest department stores in town. I’d tell you a very amusing story about a bogus attempt to steal batteries for my Mr. Microphone, but to do so, I’d have to admit to owning a Mr. Microphone. So, I’m not going to do it.

My point is this: It is much harder to fake a theft than it is to actually swipe something. To steal, one simply grabs a desired item and conceals it upon his body in a furtive fashion. To fake a steal, you have to pretend to be furtive while intentionally drawing the attention of the security dude, who could be anywhere.

It ain’t easy being a kid. But we all wanted that free item that comes with a false accusation. (I was torn between a Huffy bike and a bb gun. I figured I’d take the Huffy and try to land the bb gun through a false accusation at another store.)

Sadly, the plan never worked and no kid that I know ever got to select a freebie item from a department store. Mr. Microphone went out of business and good riddance to them. It was a shoddy product sold to millions of kids everywhere through some clever advertising:

“Hey, good looking,” said the disco-haired guy as he rode around in a cool car and addressed pretty girls through his Mr. Microphone. “I’ll be back to pick you up later.”

That liar. Mr. Microphone didn’t work nearly that well. I hope that disco guy got a really bad cold sore from a filthy microphone and girls wouldn’t go near him.

I take this hallucinogenic trip down memory lane because I’ve been hearing a lot about shoplifting. Tis the season, you know. But while the image I get is of hooligan children skulking around the toy section, the shopkeepers tell me that is largely false.

The bigger plague consists of fully grown adults who steal with flair and creativity. There are parents who teach their children to distract store employees so mom can slide that new iPod down her pants. There are parents who will stuff stolen loot into their baby’s diaper.

Terminally out-of-work couples will work as a team to keep security guards off balance while they steal electronics and clothes, cigarettes and booze. Shoppers posing as hard-working, long-suffering parents will slide through the self-checkouts without forking over a penny for that cart full of food. Brazen men and women are walking out of stores with pockets full while you’re searching for that last dime to finish up your Christmas shopping.

Wretches, the lot of them. While these shifty bandits make off with their stolen bounty, men and women are freezing around big, red buckets outside, trying to coax nickels and dimes for needy families.

I know a young lady who becomes profoundly uncomfortable if she needs to pluck something from her pocket while roaming a department store. She makes exaggerated movements if she has to reach for her wallet or into her purse. She’s like a criminal suspect demonstrating to a cop that she has no weapon.

“I am now removing my cell phone from my right, front pocket!” she will announce loudly to no one. “I am grasping the phone with my forefinger and thumb!”

She does this because the shoplifter is among the most loathsome and detestable specimen you will find in a department store and she does not want to be falsely identified as one.

Which is troubling to me because I still cling to hope that a false accusation might yet result in that freebie item dreamed of so long ago. I never got that Huffy bike. My BB gun busted years ago. And I’m sure the Mr. Microphones of today are greatly improved.

“Hey, good looking! We’ll be back to pick you up later!”

Ah, bite me.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal’s crime reporter. Lately, he’s been longing for his lost youth.