KENOSHA, Wis. — I am the man. I have shopped at Woodman’s Food Market, 7145 120th Ave. in Kenosha, with my family roughly once a week for years. On Saturday afternoon, at about 3:15 p.m., that routine grocery trip turned into one of the strangest encounters I have ever had in a store. My family and I were nearing the end of an aisle when we overheard two employees talking about a “lifetime ban.” As we got closer, I started to get the strange feeling they were talking about me. They were.

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A plainclothes security employee approached me, identified himself as store security and politely told me he had reason to believe that I had received a lifetime ban from Woodman’s stores. I immediately told him there had to be a mistake. I have never been banned from Woodman’s, and in fact, I have never been banned from any store or property in my life. Standing behind him was a Woodman’s employee named Frank Marano, who was a douchebag from nearly the beginning of the encounter.

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According to Frank, there was no mistake. He insisted that I had been banned for life since 2020 because of something he called the “maskless march.” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. At first, I thought “maskless march” sounded like some QAnon-type craziness, so I later looked it up and learned it involved people protesting mask mandates during COVID. That only made Frank’s accusation more bizarre. In 2020, I lived in Somers, I cannot remember a single time I was even inside Woodman’s that year, and I certainly never participated in a protest at Woodman’s over masks or anything else.

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Frank, however, was apparently convinced he knew exactly who I was. I asked him my first name and he said “Kevin.” I then asked him my last name, and he replied, “Mathewson.” Frank also told me, according to my recollection of the encounter, that he was the store manager and that there was nobody higher than him at the Kenosha store. That turned out not to be true.

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After the encounter, I went to the front counter and was told Frank was not the store manager. The store manager was Garrett, who I then spoke with about what had just happened. I explained that Frank had accused me of being banned over some kind of COVID protest and had insisted I was going to be arrested, apparently before anybody had even bothered confirming whether I was actually on a banned list. Garrett told me he would speak with Frank and review the store’s surveillance video. “If he doesn’t know for a fact, we shouldn’t be approaching people and accusing them of anything,” Garrett told me during our recorded conversation.

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Frank had also insisted that I was going to be arrested for trespassing, but the plainclothes security employee, who was polite and professional throughout the encounter, made clear that wasn’t going to happen. I told them to call the police. If Woodman’s truly believed I had been banned from the property for six years, I wanted police there so they could check it out and get to the bottom of it. The security employee told me, “That’s not necessary.” Woodman’s then checked its list, and of course, I wasn’t on it, because I have never been banned from Woodman’s.

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During the encounter, Frank also told me that he “better not” end up on my website. I told him he was definitely going to be on my website. “Do you want to bet?” Frank responded. Yes, I did. Frank then said he was going to “call Xavier” and suggested that would somehow prevent the story from being published. Kenosha County Eye does not know who Frank was referring to when he said “Xavier,” or why Frank apparently believed this person had some authority over what appears on this website. Whoever Xavier is, he does not have editorial control over Kenosha County Eye.

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I later told Garrett directly that I was going to write about what happened, while also making clear that my problem was not with the security employee. During our recorded conversation, I told Garrett the security employee was “cool” and expressed a very different opinion of Frank. Garrett provided me with Woodman’s corporate telephone number and said he would look into what happened.

I have since reached out to Woodman’s corporate customer and media relations seeking comment about Frank’s conduct and asking whether the company agrees with Garrett that an employee should know for a fact that a customer is banned before approaching and accusing that person. I also asked whether Woodman’s considers it appropriate for an employee to threaten a customer with arrest for trespassing before confirming that the customer is actually on the company’s banned list, whether Frank’s conduct will be reviewed, and whether the company knows who Frank meant when he said he would “call Xavier” to prevent publication. As of publication, Woodman’s corporate office has not responded. If the company does respond, Kenosha County Eye will update this story.

I am intentionally blurring the plainclothes security employee’s face and will refer to him as “Josh,” a pseudonym. Josh was polite, professional and reasonable throughout the encounter. He listened when I told him there had obviously been a mistake, did not escalate the situation and made clear that I was not going to be arrested. Frank, on the other hand, was a douchebag.

And for anyone wondering why I am writing a story about something that happened to me personally, I have a website. Why have one if I can’t occasionally air my own grievances? Especially when somebody confronts me during a routine grocery trip, falsely tells me I have been “banned for life” over a protest I never attended, threatens me with arrest and then tells me some guy named Xavier is somehow going to stop me from writing about it. Consider this the takeaway from Saturday’s grocery trip: Don’t be like Frank. Be like Josh.