Sharing Winona’s Pain but Not Her Publicist

I was stopped for shoplifting the other day at a Target store.

I wasn’t really trying to steal the small notebook in the bottom of my shopping cart. It was just there. But for a fleeting moment of guilt and apprehension, I looked into the soul of Winona Ryder.

I’m not saying the winsome little thing is guilty or innocent of trying to steal $4,760 worth of stuff from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Her lawyer says it’s all a big mistake, and her publicist is looking forward to explaining the whole thing.

They are going to have ample time to do just that in court. Ryder is charged not only with stealing, but also with possession of a controlled substance without a prescription.

My incident was also a big misunderstanding, but the object of the misunderstanding cost not $4,760 but $1.98. Also, the controlled substance I carried was for lowering my cholesterol and not for launching me into orbit around the sun.

Most shoplifters operate in my range, not in the range Ryder is accused of occupying. However, store security personnel tend to become testy over the little things too, because stores lose about $10 billion a year to people who drop stuff into their bags or their shopping carts without paying.

The security guard who stopped me on my way out was short, square and blunt. “Did you pay for that object in your cart, sir?” she asked in the tone of a cop who had just caught me murdering my sister. Are you killing your sister, sir?

I had purchased a bunch of things, and the little notebook, silly me, had been overlooked on the bottom of the cart and not placed for payment on the counter.

I looked at the notebook. I looked at the guard. The guard looked at me.

Freeze frame.

I am standing there thinking about Winona Ryder. Some guys, caught in a similar situation, might think about God or state prison or the humiliation of disclosure or, worse, the anguish of public pity. For me, it’s the girl interrupted.

I am reasonably certain that had I been charged with shoplifting, the case would not have been treated with the same interest accorded Ryder. I would not be invited to appear on “Saturday Night Live” to make funny of my predicament, and even if a TV camera had smashed my head open, no one would have noticed, much less sympathized.

I am, however, fairly sure that my editors, all of them, might take a dim view of having someone on their staff who steals $1.98 notebooks. Big-time thievery, while reprehensible, at least possesses a kind of larcenous dignity. Stealing a cheap little notebook is degrading and disgusting.

I suppose, if it came to a trial, I could always plead insanity. Many would support the plea, including, I’m sure, my wife and children and a good many people in South Pasadena. Even the dog thinks me a bit loony.

It might work in Ryder’s case too. She’s seemed a little on the eerie side since portraying the dark and haunted kid in “Beetlejuice.” The way she hung suspended in midair while singing “Shake, shake, shake, senora ... “ struck me as more real than special effects. I was sure she was possessed of the supernatural power that allowed her to float like a balloon.

Actors are odd people. They are forever being arrested or at least exposed for doing stupid things but generally manage to squirm out of their predicaments. I can still see Hugh Grant on the Jay Leno show winning our hearts being cute and mumbly after he was caught with the hooker.

Lacking their celebrity, however, I would become nothing more than a pathetic journalistic hypocrite trying to undermine the American profit motive. As I stand there, I think about making a break for it and being shot down like a dog. At least I’d be moving.

Resume action.

“Oh,” I said, looking down at the $1.98 notebook in my shopping cart. “Oh.” It sounded effeminate. Like “oooo.”

“Did you pay for that, sir?” the guard demanded, pointing to the notebook. She reminded me of the tough female cop in the St. Louis bus depot on the old “John Larroquette Show.” I said I thought I had. I really did think that.

“Your receipt, sir,” the guard demanded.

My hand shook as I fished for the bill of sale. She took it, studied it and said, “It’s not on here.” I felt like Walter Mitty as James Cagney shooting it out with the cops. You’ll never take me alive!

“You’ll have to pay for that, sir.”

“Yes, yes, wow, of course, sure, oooo.”

I hustled back to the register like a schoolgirl late for class, paid the $1.98 plus tax and was out the door with the dark and accusing glare of the guard burning between my shoulder blades.

I decided then and there, and perhaps Winona should too, that I would never be in a situation again where even the suggestion of thievery could manifest itself. I was Walter Mitty in a white robe, with the light of God shining on me, singing “Ave Maria.”

I really wasn’t trying to steal the notebook. It was a terrible mistake. The publicist I’m about to hire will explain it in more detail next week on David Letterman.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.