Dear LFTP: the ice-cream-bars letter and the Walgreens soda story

• Is it wrong to eat store food in the aisle if you pay at checkout?

A listener asks whether her friend was wrong to eat an ice cream bar in the aisle and pay at checkout. Verdict: fine if you pay — theft only happens when you leave without paying; opening a by-the-box item isn't like sampling by-weight grapes. Detour: a host tells of being confronted at Walgreens for drinking a soda he brought in (warm in the car), plus a government-auction exact-change saga.