Then they could actually afford to buy the sneakers...
‘Hey man! Lemme see your new kicks! Wow! Nike! Check those colors and highlights out!’
‘Yeah, they’re sweet aren’t they?’
‘What are you going to do now that you stole ‘em? ‘
‘Dunno. Probably go stand on the street corner in a sad, hopeless attempt at eking out a few morsels of admiration from other sad, bone-idle losers like you. Or I might just go home since I don’t have a job.’
‘Cool, man. Probably see you down there.’
For a lot of shoplifters, the “thrill” of getting something for nothing is the motivation, especially with suburban high school kids.
When I was in high school, I knew a kid whose dad was an NYPD detective. The kid loved to go to Rockaway Beach and steal sneakers from beach blankets. He had a couple of dozen sneakers under his bed, and his father the detective, never suspected anything. (Sure.) I was in Macy’s with him once and he stole an address book from the stationery section, not because he wanted an address book, but because he wanted to steal.