Stop! Thief!! Or maybe not.

I can't help it. I've been setting off alarm bells again. Some of my local stores are of the opinion that I might be a shoplifter.

It isn't store staff who make the accusation. It's those electronic theft-detection systems that guard the store exits.

You've no doubt heard them. The mechanized voice that often follows the alarm doesn't actually use the word "shoplifter." Instead, it suggests that the store has "apparently failed to remove the inventory control tag" from my purchase or something similar. It helpfully suggests I return to the cash to sort out this horrible mix-up.

The public pronouncement acknowledges that the person frozen at the exit is probably innocent and that the problem is probably the store's.

But the buzzers and loud warning imply the possibility that I could actually be doing something bad. The machine might as well be saying: "HEY EVERYONE. THE GUY AT THE EXIT MAY HAVE SOME OF OUR STUFF THAT HE DIDN'T PAY FOR. SHAME ON YOU. MAYBE."

You know the drill. A staffer often tries to check things out. When a cursory inspection fails to find evidence of criminality, they take everything back to their electronic thing-a-majig by the till, where they feverishly re-swipe the merchandise or take off the electronic article surveillance (EAS) tags that should have been removed in the first place. Often, the renewed effort is for naught, as the alarms still sound for some unknown reason.

You then leave the store with your goods — sometimes with an apology, sometimes not.

We shoppers, being polite Canadians, invariably put up with the embarrassment and inconvenience. I'm a veteran of these charades.

Once, when a store couldn't figure out why I was triggering their Def Con 3 alert, I'm ashamed to admit that I actually helped the probe by slowly moving selected contents of my pockets — then my wallet — and finally my shoes — back and forth through the trigger zone to see what was causing the problem. Anyone looking on must have thought I'd invented a retail version of tai chi.

Sometimes, staff helpfully suggest reasons for the alert. As in: "Did you buy a CD at another store?" or "Is there a tag stuck to the bottom of your shoe?" or "Have you just visited Chernobyl?" OK, the last one's not real, but I've been asked the first two.

A colleague tells me that his rented videos can't make it by these machines without causing a stink. Another says her security pass seems to be the culprit. She might be on to something there. Several years ago, an old security pass of mine set off alarms every time I went into two particular stores. A friend tells me that library books or his pocket utility knife sometimes set things a-clanging.

People usually find that the staff are sympathetic to their predicament and don't presume they're dealing with practitioners of the five-finger discount. After all, they hear these false positives being sounded all day long.

Often the staff simply tell you to ignore the cacophony because the machine's just decided to scream at everyone that day.

The other night, I spent almost an hour at a busy mall watching people going in and out of a big chain department store. The security buzzers were threatening to drown out the Christmas music. Not once did store staff find someone who had actually shoplifted. One harried clerk spent her time verifying that the store wasn't being robbed by a 50-person shoplifting ring.

Let's stop for a moment and look at what's happening here:

We, the supposedly valued customers, are being routinely fingered as potential shoplifters, and publicly humiliated by loud buzzers, alarms, and officious announcements. When we're finally "cleared," we're then sent on our way by staff who point out that "the machines are always doing that," as though that's an excuse we can all chuckle along with.

Enough.

Memo to retailers: Get your act together. While I have enormous sympathy for your losses from "shrinkage," as it's euphemistically called, this can't be the best way to handle the problem. I don't like being buzzed, beeped, told to go back into the store, or bothered in any way because your security system has incorrectly fingered me as a possible miscreant. After all, I've just spent money in your store. This isn't a border crossing.

It's time to either re-calibrate your security system, train your staff better, or just get machines that don't shout "J'accuse" every time someone walks in or out with a belt buckle.

The alternative is that we, the customers, will all soon ignore that advice to return to the cash register and keep walking when the alarms sound. Many customers already do that.

Just don't talk about these security devices keeping down prices by reducing shoplifting. I'm not complaining about electronic article surveillance. I'm not complaining about having all kinds of security in place. Greeters, cameras, store detectives. All fine.

I'm just fed up with shopping at stores that couldn't be bothered to figure out the difference between a library book and their own merchandise, and enrolling me in their very public self-discovery process, whether or not I want to participate.

It's no coincidence that I've done more online shopping this year than ever before. It's "virtually" alarm-free.

That's my little rant. Enjoy the holiday. And best wishes to the over-worked retail clerks who put up with a lot this time of year — often for less than $10 an hour.

They deserve better.