Buckle up, because this one's a doozy.
This happened about three years ago, I was about 18 at the time and I was on an out-of-town work trip with my church's youth group. We were at a church camp, helping around the campus to prepare for summer. I guess I was what you would call one of the "adult leaders". That stuff isn't important, you're here to hear about my incident at a Giant Eagle.
It was the fourth day of the trip, and we were running low on certain supplies. We were staying at the camp but since the camp season hadn't started yet we couldn't raid the mess hall for what we needed, so I was volun-told to run to the GE and get more bottled water and some other small stuff.
My girlfriend (at the time, we broke up because she got too attached and wanted to marry me before either of us were even 20. Let's call her Jess for this story) tagged along, she was a "leader" as well and we both needed a break from the children. We hop in the car and head for the store. When we arrive there we grab a cart and walk in. We were unfamiliar with this particular GE because we were from out of town so we had to walk around a bit before finding what we needed.
This is where things start to get interesting. As we're trying to find some of the smaller stuff we need, (tissues or pens or something I don't remember, I've slept more than twice since then) an elderly woman, looked to be seventy-ish, starts to follow us. We didn't think anything of it at first, but we picked up on it when she went to every aisle we did after we had already walked down them because we were lost. When we noticed she was following us we also noticed that she was staring pretty intently at Jess. We asked her if she needed something and she immediately responded with "I'm so sorry, but you look just like my granddaughter. She was killed in a car accident two weeks ago and seeing someone who looks so much like her is a little unsettling." I almost can't believe what she's telling us, but Jess was just under six foot tall and had medium length blonde hair and brown eyes. Not uncommon for a teenager but I wasn't dating her for her looks. We give the woman our condolences and just as turn to walk away she speaks up again. "Pardon me again, but can I ask a favor of you? My granddaughter used to come grocery shopping with me because I have trouble reading the small print on these packages. Would you mind helping me?" Seemed harmless enough and Jess didn't mind, so I go off to grab the rest of the stuff we needed and meet up with Jess and her newfound friend. As they go along they chat it up. They're giggling at the jokes they tell each other, the old woman seemed to be really enjoying it. It started to get strange though, because she started to call Jess "Emily". I guess that was the name of her granddaughter. She even started recounting stories as if Jess had been there, I guess she really thought that Jess was her late granddaughter. We figured she was still grieving so we didn't say anything about it, but I could tell Jess was getting weirded out. I was too, we both just wanted to get back to camp.
So we finish helping this lady with her shopping and we head up to the checkout lane. With a cart full of stuff she goes in first so that Jess can help her unload the cart. She gets all of her stuff, turns around, waves, says "Bye-bye Emily, I'll see you back at home!" then leaves the store. We put out stuff on the counter to be rung up and the cashier tells me the total will be $336. I ask him again because I can't believe what he just told me, and we have a small argument over the price of two cases of water and the other stuff we had. (It wasn't much but I cannot remember what it was.) It didn't take me long to realize that this elderly woman had just pulled a fast one. She was either lying about Emily, or Jess really did look like her and this woman jumped at the chance. I still don't know. So I look at Jess and tell her to stay there with the stuff and I run out to get to this lady. She had gotten an employee to help her unload her cart so she close to getting into her car and driving away. She was parked in a handicap spot so I didn't have to run far to catch up with her, and when I do I start yelling that she needs to get back inside to pay for her groceries. She isn't listening and is trying to climb into her car. I'm not about to pay over $300 for her stuff, so I run over and grab her. I must've slipped though because I only got her leg. At this point we're both yelling at each other, her yelling for me to let go and me yelling for her to get back inside. She was really putting up a fight, but I had an iron grip on her leg and I was just pulling on it and pulling on it, a lot like how I'm pulling on your right now.