It's not very often a $6.95 salad from Houston Market is unforgettable.
Yet College freshman Melanie Foreman is unlikely to forget the garden salad with feta cheese and ranch dressing she picked up on Tuesday.
When the 19-year-old walked out of Houston Hall without paying Tuesday afternoon, Philadelphia Police were waiting with handcuffs. Foreman was arrested and charged with retail theft, a misdemeanor.
The student was taken to the police station at 40th and Market streets, where she said she spent an hour crying in a cold cell without her sweatshirt or jacket, which police had taken away from her.
While admitting that she was culpable, Foreman thinks that the police response was excessive. "I was wrong. I shouldn't have done it, but if they'd [just] told me not to do it again I sure as hell wouldn't have," she said.
For her indiscretion, she earned a court date in Center City early yesterday morning -- scheduled for approximately the same time as one of her midterms. The judge was late, she said, so the court officers on duty told her to head to class and return later in the day.
But that wasn't the end of this episode.
She returned to find a judge's arrest warrant in her name and has to go back again this morning to sort things out.
The moral of this tale for any student who attempts to lift food from the wide-open Houston aisles: She never even got a chance to eat the salad. So much for lunch on the run.
-- Garrett Young
