To set the stage, I live in a subdivision with about 200 or 300 homes. They are about 40 years old and most of us have been here for long time. It’s a quiet neighborhood, cut off from most of the rest of the residential part of the city. We have very little trouble, a few rowdy teenagers and a domestic dispute from time to time, but that’s about it.
Three houses down the street from me is a guy I’ll call Joe. His next door neighbor I’ll call Sam. They are pretty typical neighbors for around here. They pick up each others newspapers and mail and feed the dog while the other is out of town and recieve UPS packages for each other, but otherwise pretty much keep to themselves.
The other day, Joe pulls in his driveway in his pickup returning from the grocery store. Oh, another thing about this neighborhood, we have front entrance garages and the houses are about 20 feet apart. So, Joe’s driveway is about 30 feet from Sam’s front door.
Anyhow, Sam looks out and see’s some of the stuff he’s missing in the back of Joe’s pickup and promptly calls the police. Joe, meanwhile, is casually carrying in his groceries when the cops arrive in about 2 minutes (we are only a mile from the police station.) The cops ask Joe why Sam’s stuff is in the back of his pickup. Joe answers “I don’t know how they got there.”
*Oh, come on. We’re talking about a couple of bicycles and a lawn mower and he just got back from the store and didn’t notice them in the back. I can think quicker than that. He could have tried “I found them in the store parking lot and was bringing them back to Sam” or something like that. *
As the police were investigating the quote scene of the crime unquote, he still had a ladder up against the fence that separated Joe’s & Sam’s backyards. He was trying hard to cover his crime.
I don’t have any experience at stealing neighbors stuff, but I think the handbook would read something like “stash it in the garage and wait for the neighbor to leave and haul it off to the local pawn shop as quickly as posible.” But, I’m fairly sure it doesn’t say “take the stuff to the grocery store in the open bed of a pickup and then come back and park in the driveway in broad daylight 20 feet away from the guys house that you stole it from.” Maybe the pages were stuck together and he was in the “Don’t” chapter instead of the “Do” chapter.
As Sam was telling my neighbor and I about this last night, I could hardly keep from laughing. I wanted to offer some sympathy for having his stuff stolen and living next door to a thief, but keeping a straight face was very difficult.
Jim