pilomotor
34502
822
16
Feb 25, 2025 5:34 AM
pilomotor
34502
822
16
Qualtagh
Onlyhereforthelaughs
Team Kids In A Cage!
HandsomePenguin
They do this at one of my local grocery stores, too. Last time, it was a biker from a local club in the cage.
emertonom
The logistics of having their hands handcuffed on the outside of the bars, but also having to hide their coffee somewhere, makes me think this is probably not a true story.
Korpikoijari
The wild west never stopped being wild, jesus fucking christ yanks.
easytigger
I think we need to check the managers hard drive.
Onlyhereforthelaughs
I think our store uses those carts for flowers.
HelloMyNamesInigoMontoya
Can't help but wonder how many people walked away from this with a new kink or two
mindolluin
Yikes
lovehandlesmessiah
[Sarah McLachlan intensifies]
knittinglizard
I was asked to do this when I was a Walmart greeter except it was one of those cages made with bungee cord that store large toy balls.. I refused. It was the most humiliating thing I've ever been asked to do. Other greeters did it like twice, before I broke the illusion with my refusal. Like, you dont realize its fucked up until someone says it out loud. You want me to sit in a cage and beg for money? I make minimum wage. Thats not enough cover being victim to psychological cruely. Sorry
DreadPirateJaceMangrove
The fact that people would rather be handcuffed in a cage begging for money, rather than deal with typical retail work, should really tip some people off on how shitty retail work is
REOJackwagon
#1 and now they call him Billy Corgan
MouseDenton
There was an old cartoon that touched on this. Poor guy in rags begging and getting decent cash, goes and gets a suit, haircut, cleans up, goes back to begging and gets nothing but dirty looks. Conversely, an experiment between a poor-looking beggar asking for change and a suited man asking for $20 in parking fees found people way more generous to the well-off guy. The psychology of generosity is fucking infuriating.
awholelotofnothin
It's why con artists wear suits but muggers wear street clothes. You are more likely to give money to a guy in a suit and feel some sort of reciprocity, but the fear of poverty, a hard life, and mental illness makes street people very scary and unpredictable. You give to a rich guy because you want to be him, you avoid the poor guy because you're afraid of becoming him, and yet you are only 3 paychecks away from being street guy, and 100,000 paychecks away from being rich guy.
mohavewolfpup
Slap sky daddy quotes on a bucket after donning your suit and go to town. Lots to fleece, err help your churches mission… ahem…
NowhereMan313
It is. I see the logic on the poor vs suit/ change vs $20 thing, and I hate that I can see it. They look at the poor guy and think lazy/junkie/crackhead/etc that's gonna waste the money on... whatever, whereas the suit is just a dude having a rough time and doesn't have cash on him. That's rough, buddy. Happens to us all from time to time. Have a Jackson on me.
SonnyVabitch
The flip side is the story 'The Man with the Twisted Lip' from the collection of short stories 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' from 1891. The main character is a white collar guy who makes a decent living by dressing up as a beggar.
DanOrtega
True story, in my city there was this man with no legs, always in the same corner, asking for money. The stint went on for years, until the rumor started spreading that he was a sleazy moneylender who charged hefty interests. It finally became apparent one day that was apparently slow, the man took out a cellphone (back then they were rare), and minutes later an expensive van pulled over and picked him up.
Xenarion
Well a clean-looking man who just begs sounds weird, while a clean-looking man who asks to be helped out of a specific yet relatable bind is a lot more understandable.
DanOrtega
By Argentinian cartoonist Quino. Yeah, I remember it well.
khopesh87
I kept reading, wondering if/when this was gonna turn into a kink thing. Because this REALLY sounds like a kink thing.
MadamPuddifoot
*bonks* go to horny jail
HawkmanXLII
I gave up reading it because it's too damn long and not very interesting.
nation543
I was thinking that there was going to be a moral to the story of corporate greed, and how people are so easy to manipulate because they're stupid.
That's what I took from this, at least.
Timmysteve
whoever came up with the idea of the cage was crazy. This kid rubbing their wrists red with the handcuffs sounds like they were into it.
Goronhead
Same here. Like I knew it wasn't a kink thing per se, but it has very strong vibes of being a kink thing
SacrificialClam
Welp anyway turns out years later that I love being handcuffed and whipped by my dom.
HelloMyNamesInigoMontoya
Same. But I think that says a lot more about us than the post itself.
khopesh87
GSA1386
It's a kink thing
HandoB4Javert
adverselypossessed
I was expecting jumper cables.
TheobromineAddict
The bit about older "gentlemen" in suits being prone to give more cash if she acted uncertain, helpless and shy, that was the kink part.
throwaway12345432
I don't remember them specifying they were a girl.
ADDGirl
I re-read it and the people calling them "champ" and "kid" felt male, but then the comment of "I got more donations when I wore makeup and earrings" and "I told another girl how to.." reads female.
Geistbar
The line "had to explain to another girl" would strongly imply that the speaker is a woman.
Contextually though, especially in reference to the parts about older men, I'd be shocked if the story wasn't written by a woman.
Zange0
I think OP is trans masc, but I'm honestly not sure.
Geistbar
I can see why you'd think that, but keep in mind the story is obviously in the past. The original writer makes it sound like this isn't particularly recent, so we're talking at least pre-Covid and more realistically 10+ years ago.
Society's acceptance of trans people is shit today. It was a different kind of shit back then, where there'd be less open political hostility but also far less acceptance of openly being trans. They would not have gotten positive results for the charity this way, IMO.
dickdrizzle2
none of this shit ever happened
pilomotor
Nothing ever happens.
dickdrizzle2
well certainly not what would amount to child abuse or labor law violations...
akafluffy
I assure you both of those things happen with shocking regularity.
dickdrizzle2
I get that, but a very brazen and public display of it in front of customers for charity and no source that it ever happened? DOUBT
akafluffy
It's no worse than a 14 year old burning themselves at a starbucks and Karen complaining they aren't going fast enough, and that literally never stops happening.
Columbus43219
omg, are you from a small town? We had SLAVE day! Handcuffing a teenage girl in a cage would have been considered childcare.
throwaway12345432
So now the immigrant children have stolen your job?
ObliviousJ
I'd say too soon, but who knows how long they will be around to joke about.
akafluffy
too soon... but also yes
throwaway12345432
Come on now, we've been hearing about kids in cages for years now.
akafluffy
yes, but they're still there
throwaway12345432
Well eventually they become adults in cages and apparently aren't a problem anymore.
akafluffy
when they age out of the program, they become adults with no passports held indeterminately by the only nation that could claim them... and then they get shipped to cuba, when gitmo fills up again, we'll see how long it takes to turn into a full blown concentration camp.
Corrodias
Huh. I would assume people didn't promise to talk to the manager because, you know, it's an obvious, voluntary bit, considering the sign and all. Then again, they did mention some people getting upset, so, I don't know any more.
OperationRustysBlanket
People are still walking around my grocery store wearing masks around their chin despite no one asking them to or it accomplishing anything but hurting their own ears. I don’t know either
Xenarion
That was my thought at first, except for the part of them being a teenager, which makes it a lot more iffy.
DrBourbonTheOriginal
That was my take away as well.
dwolvin
Humans in 'customer mode' are astonishingly simple. I have caught myself in a store in the process of completly ignoring a sign and laughed at myself. When the stocker looked up I explained that my sign had been almost word for word (20+ years ago), and I was about to do exactly what annoyed me back then.
Corrodias
A typical store is such a cacophony of sights that it's easy to miss individual things, in my experience.
Xenarion
True. With everything fighting to get our attention, we learn to ignore them by instinct.
spookyactionatadistance
It can't be voluntary because they were minor. Whether they wanted or not is of no consequence..This is the organ grinding machine. It's an insane premise. If I saw that I would legit call the police and walk them inside and show them how fucking insane it is
Qualtagh
small kids pretend to suffer in movies and plays all the time. But somehow this does feel worse. Maybe because a little sign isn't our normal way to declare that something is pretend. Maybe cause, voluntary or not, she WAS in a cage for hours and would face repercussions if she just walked out of the store midshift-- which really blurs some lines.
spookyactionatadistance
True, sometimes I do wonder about the impact acting out troubling scenes can have on young kids as well. But as you say it does feel a little worse
Corrodias
"teenage" includes 18 and 19. In any case, they were (I assume) legally permitted to work there, so I don't think the law would have much to say about the method in which they work as long as it follows health and safety regs.
ThomasThundersword
especially since it sounds like a voluntary assignment they sought out specifically. and honestly, sounds nicer than working the warehouse
spookyactionatadistance
Being handcuffed in a fake cage the way they described would at the very least be a hazard if there's a fire
Corrodias
As an aside, just as a matter of taste, I'd find this grossly discomforting and would avoid the store. It worked for them, so good for them, I suppose.
ThanatosElNyx
I seriously doubt that they were real handcuffs. Or that they couldn't leave the cage voluntarily.
Corrodias
Yeah, you are right about that, and I pictured the same thing but figured that can't be right, because they were also drinking something. But maybe they had a straw. Hard to be sure whether they just described it oddly.