It’s no secret that I am a student of human nature. I enjoy watching people and trying to understand them. Sometimes this understanding is predicated on experiments. I call that Stick-buggin’. It’s like when a child pokes at an insect with a stick, to see what it will do…

Once, in a grocery store, I was ruminating to some friends about how people have certain boundaries, and that I like to cross them to see what they’ll do. They wanted an example.

So I took a lady’s basket. She turned and said “Hey! That’s my basket!” I stopped and said, “No, it belongs to the store.” “I mean the stuff in in it,” she said. “That belongs to the store too.” I countered. “You haven’t paid for it. And I like what’s in here, so I’m taking it. “

And I shot around to the other aisle, and me and my friends were cracking up. I went back after a few seconds and she was still standing there, dumbfounded, with a can of peas in her hand. I laughed and told her it was a dare, and I was just kidding. Fortunately, she had a sense of humor and didn’t bean me with the beans.