One man in Oklahoma suddenly found himself stuck inside an Aldi supermarket after the last employee locked the store and left without checking for remaining people.


Sharing on his TikTok account, the man shared the footage when he was stuck inside the store with another customer, which dated back to April 2020.

“I just got locked in an Aldi and they don’t close until, like, nine o’clock,” said the man, as he pointed to his watch, which clearly shows 8:45 pm.

He wrote in the caption: “During the pandemic, Aldi closed early and the cashier neglected to make sure no customers were left in the store.”

In the video footage, the man showed the door clearly locked from the outside, with no way of getting out. To open the door, they would have set off the alarms and would likely have meant dealing with unnecessary police attention.

“I saw the cashier leaving and I ran up to the window waving at her as she drove off. She never noticed us,” he recalled.

Reckoning that the employee won’t be coming back until tomorrow, the only thing left for him to do was to call the police.

“I had to call 911 because the alarm was activated and I can't get out,” he said, and added, “But I don't have to worry about starving to death because there's plenty of food and there's also a bunch of alcohol.”

“The cop arrived and told us to stay put, that the manager is on his way,” he continued. “He was laughing pretty much the entire time.”

It was the police that contacted the store manager, who then arrived at the scene to let the remaining customers out. They were even accused of “breaking into the store” then “hiding in the store” by the manager, but after reviewing the CCTV camera footage, they were let go.

In the comments section, the man clarified that the video was not staged and he was not a thief. “I’m a law-abiding citizen and respectful shopper. I feel notifying the police and waiting was the best course of action,” he said.

He added that he understood the incident was not intentional and there was no person to blame. “I still shop at Aldi and there are no hard feelings.”



While the man's experience was hilarious and certainly unusual, he is not the first customer to get locked inside a grocery store.

Last year, one Queensland shopper was locked inside a local Kmart after closing time.

Sharing on TikTok, the Kmart customer said he panicked when he heard the motion alarm sensors go off.

He recalled: “I started running around the store thinking ‘What is going on?’ I start shouting ‘Hello? Is anyone here? I’m on my own?’”

And it wasn’t until he got a hold of a security guard and a staff member that he was finally able to get out.


As scary a scenario as this, it’s great to hear that nobody has been harmed and that there are happy endings all round. Have you got any crazy stories of stores after hours? Let us know down below!