Small Apocalypse Christmas Shopping

Today, as I walked around Dillard's in Lakeside mall, I witnessed Foucault's Panopticism, as two girls attempted to go for the ultimate sale: the five finger discount. As the two girls looked around for anyone "watching", the one girl grabbed the sweater and dropped it into her yellow large forever 21 bag. However, as soon as the shirt was in their possession, an older man in his late fifties began talking to them, asking them questions about the same shirt that they had put in their bag. As I watched this all go down, I late noticed that the girls took the shirt out of their bag and place it back on the display. As they walked out the door, the older man walked back to who I presumed to be his wife and smile. However, I later noticed that he was indeed an undercover cop. While he did these two young girls a favor by not booking them, the idea that any ordinary person could be a cop is an example of controlling the human population, even when we think that no one is watching.