Suspecting a soused citizen of side-salad swipery, employees of a Conifer Road grocery called for badge-bearing backup. Officers found the sodden suspect reclined and semi-coherent on the curb out front. Though unable to recall how he got there, the man told officers he was hitching a ride to Pine, or possibly waiting for a friend, or maybe walking to his mom’s house, and further stated with absolute conviction that he’d had no alcohol at all, that day, or else three shots, tops. Either way, he’d paid in full for the three Oriental noodle soups and container of potato salad in his shopping bag, which he would gladly prove if he could only find the receipt, which was either still hanging out of the self-checkout machine, or wasn’t. Deputies soon located a receipt for three Oriental noodle soups in the fellow’s breast pocket, alongside a previously un-missed slab of apple-wood-smoked Swiss cheese. “Oh,” he said, “I must have forgotten to pay for that, too.” Having recovered its pilfered provisions, the store generously declined to press charges. Having adjudged the man’s BAC at something beyond “tipsy” officers bagged him for release to a responsible party.