Love's

Last night after a slog through the North Carolina/ Tennessee mountains with 43,500 pounds of newsprint I pulled for the night into a Love's in Dandridge (the pic above is of a Love's in Lufkin, Texas). Two or three cop cars were pulled in at that jaunty 'no time to park-looking official' angle, lights whipping silently.
The CB chatter was what you would expect. "What is goin on at the Love's?!" "oh boy, three bears at the love's, somethin's goin down."
I finished my daily paperwork and got my dinner ready to be taken in and microwaved and then headed in (with a bit of excitement).
By the time I had made it in, although, most of the to do had been done. In the hall way between the Love's store itself and its appendage Subway a couple employees were mopping the floor in front of what I'll call the "fancy stuff" case.
A lot of truck stops have gifts presumably for truckers to buy to give to their perennially neglected families. These would be nice if the gifts were interesting or unique or place specific but they aren't. They're all the same, frightful dolls (often with questionably 'sensitive' racial characteristics, remote controlled semi-trucks, etc... Some of the "nicer gifts", big eyed child figurines, swords and knives, anything made of crystal (aka glass) are put in a locked glass case.
As I was microwaving some baked beans I asked a passing clerk what had happened. She was older and painted in make up and spoke in a clipped southern mountain accent roughened by cigarette smoke.
"This guy come in here try to break into that case so those two fellas behind the counter tackled him down to the ground. Says he was just tryin to get somethin for his kids. They all say that. See we gets a bonus if nothin gets stole, if nobody takes nothin, so those guys they tackled him. He broke the lock on that case, he broke it. He was tryin to get them two swords out the bottom of the case. For his kids, yeah right!"
"Does this happen a lot" I asked.
"Yeah, mostly this time of year."
"Oh cause of the holidays?"
"Yeah, all this time of year. We already had 4 in the last month."

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They must have to scout for these cashiers at high school football games.