# To the piece of shit who keyed a classic car **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 19, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753 "2006-12-19T05:42:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boggette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@Boggette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boggette)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/41 "2006-12-19T20:55:47Z")
When we moved into this house, the former owner took a sledge hammer to the window ridge of our 1966 Charger. To this day, we don’t know why he did it, and the police say that they’ll question him ‘if they ever see him again’. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you you don’t mess with a man’s vehicle?” ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/42 "2006-12-19T21:18:30Z")
[QUOTE=Necros] :shrug: OK, fine with me. There are people out there who will protect their property with deadly force, and as long as you are willing to accept the consequences, then who cares? I guess I was under the impression that we lived in a society of laws, but I guess ol’ **Contrapuntal** is out there on the frontier, livin’ by his gun and his guts. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] **Contrapuntal** is fully alive, capable of protecting himself, familiar with violence, and existentially free, just like the vandals, so they share a bond even though one is good and the other evil. Meanwhile, we townspeople are unable to understand them and live a small and degraded existence. That’s why none of us will help him when the Miller Gang shows up to key everyone’s car. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/43 "2006-12-19T21:20:42Z")
At some point in the future - when the kids are out of college - I intend to buy an old car. _(My all time faves are 72 Cutlass and LeMans, but lately I’ve been looking at early 60s Galaxies.)_ But the worry over having something happen to it is one reason I intend to get a B-grade driver instead of anything cherry. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/44 "2006-12-19T21:42:06Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Could’ve been worse: he could have carved his name into the leather seats, took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires… See? Be thankful at least there’s no insipid pop culture opus presenting these sorts of things as normal and justified reactions. [/QUOTE] [Aw, you should’ve at least linked to the video.](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7228850403500332238&q=carrie+underwood&hl=en) ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/45 "2006-12-19T21:49:08Z")
[QUOTE=Necros] :shrug: OK, fine with me. There are people out there who will protect their property with deadly force, and as long as you are willing to accept the consequences, then who cares? I guess I was under the impression that we lived in a society of laws, but I guess ol’ **Contrapuntal** is out there on the frontier, livin’ by his gun and his guts. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] People who block fire lanes are breaking the law. They are rarely, if ever, arrested or cited. I have seen a police car park in a parking lot where a car was blocking a fire lane. The officer failed to arrest or cite the offender. The society of laws only works when people obey them. [QUOTE=saoirse] Contrapuntal is fully alive, capable of protecting himself, familiar with violence, and existentially free, just like the vandals, so they share a bond even though one is good and the other evil. [/QUOTE] Your sarcasm aside, you are close to the truth. Just substitute “right” for “good,”,and “wrong” for “evil.” > [@](#): > > Meanwhile, we townspeople are unable to understand them and live a small and degraded existence. That’s why none of us will help him when the Miller Gang shows up to key everyone’s car. As long as the Miller gang is only keying the car of everyone who has decreed that his convenience trumps my safety, I will not need the poor, degraded townspeople’s help. The Miller Gang will suffice. Go ahead and walk through life eating the shit of those who disdain you. It probably doesn’t even stink after awhile. Or at least, not so’s you’d notice. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/46 "2006-12-19T22:44:11Z")
[QUOTE=brendon\_small] Something that pisses me off more than anything is that people don’t seem to care about vandalism. […] Guy goes to bar to watch ball game, he gets drunk and his team loses or he gets in a fight. He then walks down the street that we park our cars on (down from the bar and into a residential area) and slashes every roadside tire for blocks. The worst part is, the police can be called about it while it is going on, and they refuse to do anything other than come by and write a report, but they won’t drive up the block and stop the guy from doing it again. [/QUOTE] Well, imagine being your typical small town constabulary. Are you going to willingly get in the face of someone who is a) armed, b) skunked to the eyeballs, and c) obviously angry as hell - to stop _a property crime_? Unless and until Superfan took a box cutter to the _driver_ of one of those cars, it’s likely the cops would just as soon have let him keep living out his fantasy… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/47 "2006-12-19T23:31:26Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] Well, imagine being your typical small town constabulary. Are you going to willingly get in the face of someone who is a) armed, b) skunked to the eyeballs, and c) obviously angry as hell - to stop _a property crime_? [/QUOTE] Yeah! It’s a good thing we don’t pay them to do _exactly that!_ Any cop who’s too scared of a box cutter to do his job should find a different career. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/48 "2006-12-20T00:15:30Z")
Back when my husband liked the extended cocktail hour more than anything, he’d walk out to the barn where he kept the 67 'stang, and _the goat would be standing on it._ It didn’t phase him all that much. He’s much more protective of it now that he’s sober. But I don’t think he’d ever kill someone over a key job. Hell…that’s plenty bad, but that’s what insurance is for. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/49 "2006-12-20T02:46:10Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] Yeah! It’s a good thing we don’t pay them to do _exactly that!_ Any cop who’s too scared of a box cutter to do his job should find a different career. [/QUOTE] Yabbut. It’s a _small town._ The guy’s kids go to school with your kids. Maybe you knew the guy growing up. Maybe it’s such a dead-end shit town that _every_ male gets piss drunk on game night, and that even you love that team so much you’d do the same or worse if you didn’t have the job you have. _It’s a small town._ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/50 "2006-12-20T02:50:55Z")
[QUOTE=Boggette] “Hasn’t anyone ever told you you don’t mess with a man’s vehicle?” [/QUOTE] Apart from being a quote, that’s a Guy Rule. Some things are Just Not Done. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/51 "2006-12-20T02:57:45Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] If you park your car in the “Fire Lane, No Parking, Tow-Away Zone” at the grocery store because you are too important to be bothered with parking where the regular folks park, your car might very well be keyed. And rightly. [/QUOTE] No, it’s still be wrong to key it. It would be perfectly OK to call your buddy in the PD and have it towed and impounded, however! **Lightray & Rysdad** : Yeah, I don’t get it. What \*is it \*with women who are cheated on and then feel a need to get back at his property- and somehow that’s right? Women- you guy does you wrong, \*you leave him. \* If you are feeling particulary vindictive you let any other women in his life know what a cheating scum he is. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/52 "2006-12-20T03:29:32Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] No, it’s still be wrong to key it. It would be perfectly OK to call your buddy in the PD and have it towed and impounded, however! [/QUOTE] The only problem, as noted above, is that this solution is impractical, because it does not work. I am lucky to get police response when I call and report gunshots; calling for a parking violation would be a waste of cell minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/53 "2006-12-20T07:34:09Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > Yabbut. It’s a small town. The guy’s kids go to school with your kids. Maybe you knew the guy growing up. Maybe it’s such a dead-end shit town that every male gets piss drunk on game night, and that even you love that team so much you’d do the same or worse if you didn’t have the job you have. It’s a small town. Of course. They love each other. That’s why they intentionally damage each others’ cars, right? I bet the cops would feel differently if their buddies started keying _their_ cars. BTW, I love sports as much as the next guy, but I would be quite disturbed to know that the people I pay to protect me from the rest of my team’s fan base would love to key my car if it weren’t for the fact that they would catch heat for it at work. Actually, I bet they wouldn’t, because anything goes–_it’s a small town_. ---
**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/54 "2006-12-20T11:54:53Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] No, it’s still be wrong to key it. It would be perfectly OK to call your buddy in the PD and have it towed and impounded, however! … [/QUOTE] I have mixed feelings on this. Although I acknowledge that it is unlawful to key an illegally parked car, I can also see **Contrapuntal** ’s point of view. It would seem that people park unlawfully precisely because The System either does nothing about it, or is ineffective. I think that **Contrapuntal** , and possibly many others in momentary lapses of reason, consider keying cars out of pure frustration. I know I have. We have a running battle with people parking in front of emergency exits. No amount of letters, requests, notes, emails have any positive effect. Today’s transgressor gets replaced by another tomorrow. So yes, in a fit of pique I have certainly felt like keying a car, with the hope that someone, somewhere, will get the message, and pass it along. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/55 "2006-12-20T14:30:39Z")
[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis] I have mixed feelings on this. Although I acknowledge that it is unlawful to key an illegally parked car, I can also see **Contrapuntal** ’s point of view. It would seem that people park unlawfully precisely because The System either does nothing about it, or is ineffective. I think that **Contrapuntal** , and possibly many others in momentary lapses of reason, consider keying cars out of pure frustration. I know I have. [/QUOTE] Me too. For instance, once when trying to drive past the front of a grocery store looking for a parking spot, the car in front of me stopped. No parking zone/fire lane, blocking the lane and making it hard for carts to maneuver in and out of the store. The jackass shuts of his car and goes into the store. While I sit there fuming with cars backing up behind me, he quickly comes back out of the store back to his car. I thought he had realized what an idiot he was being and would move. Nope, he had forgot his wallet. It was very tempting to have my foot accidentally slip off my clutch… ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/56 "2006-12-20T14:50:51Z")
[Sometimes… society puts its foot down.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay) ---
**Author:** ![Necros](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/necros/32/11086_2.png) [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/57 "2006-12-20T17:02:42Z")
As long as all of you pro-keyers are OK with someone painting grafitti all over your house, or destroying some posession that you own just because you upset them, or they felt that something you did should be addressed more agressively by the justice system. I’d hate to think anyone was being hypocritical. Remind me, next time I see someone speeding, to sideswipe their car, and maybe kill their dog. After all, the police never mete out punishment that I feel is acceptable to those people. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/58 "2006-12-20T19:52:58Z")
[QUOTE=Necros] I’d hate to think anyone was being hypocritical. Remind me, next time I see someone speeding, to sideswipe their car, and maybe kill their dog. [/QUOTE] Because that is \*\*exactly \*\*what we are tallking about. Killing dogs and performing lethal traffic maneuvers. Tell me this. Have you ever violated a speeding statute? Parked in a no-parking zone? Been handed too much change in a retail transaction and not correct it? If so, did you report yourself to the police? If not, why not? Do you believe that some folks don’t have to obey the law? Or is it only illegal if you get caught? ---
**Author:** ![Necros](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/necros/32/11086_2.png) [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/59 "2006-12-20T20:10:50Z")
I smply don’t believe that I ever voted for **Contrapuntal** as Vigilante Avenger At-Large, and I can’t seemed to mfind any mentioned of him in my copy of the Constitution… You key a car because you don’t like the way someone parks, someone else may kill your dog because they get sick of it barking. Or burn down your house because they think your party was disturbing the peace. If we don’t need to have any respect for the property of others, and can arbitrarily decide on the appropriate punishment for perceived “crimes”, then the whole society goes to hell. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753/60 "2006-12-20T20:18:50Z")
[QUOTE=Necros] I smply don’t believe that I ever voted for **Contrapuntal** as Vigilante Avenger At-Large, and I can’t seemed to mfind any mentioned of him in my copy of the Constitution… You key a car because you don’t like the way someone parks, someone else may kill your dog because they get sick of it barking. Or burn down your house because they think your party was disturbing the peace. If we don’t need to have any respect for the property of others, and can arbitrarily decide on the appropriate punishment for perceived “crimes”, then the whole society goes to hell. [/QUOTE] Dang son, that is a slippery slope. Steep, too. Now about that time you were speeding on the interstate, you did report yourself, right? Once those speeding laws start getting ignored, the next thing you know they’ll start using our roads as Top Fuel dragstrips. And killing dogs for sport. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-piece-of-shit-who-keyed-a-classic-car/384753.md?page=4)