Someone cut the convertible top of my brother’s Porsche to steal his sunglasses. Guess it was a really sunny day…
Tide-al wave of detergent thefts.
I’m pretty sure I’ve posted these, but when I was in banking I was involved in one stupid robbery and knew of several others. The one where I was present involved a man who presented a teller with an “I’m armed stuff the money in this paper bag” type of note. She did, and managed to include the dye pack. He stuffed the bag down the front of his pants and ran out of the bank. Every exit door hides a transmitter that activates a dye pack on a few second delay. Dye packs release a staining dye, a skin and mucous membrane irritant (tear gas) and reach temps of well over 300 degrees F - none of which most people care to have happen in close proximity to their genitalia. We did get to see him using both hands to fling the smoking contents of the bag out of his pants as he ran across the parking lot. We may have laughed. He was found and was very easy to identify.
The next dumbest was the bank robber who made his getaway in a taxi. The cops called the cab company, got the drop off address and arrested the guy with most of the loot. He used some to pay the cabbie. Apparently he was a specialist. Robbed banks, not cabbies.
In the 1970s, my brothers and friends and I lived in a small town with a public swimming pool. Every day, a whole pack of us would ride our bikes to the pool. Often, we would see a man who dressed entirely in red clothes. Red cowboy hat, red vest, red shirt, red jeans, red cowboy boots. Everything was fire engine red. He walked irregularly. Because it was the 1970s, and we were children, we called the guy Disco Bob - because he appeared to be Disco dancing everywhere he went. We never spoke with him. He never gave us any trouble. But, we saw him regularly - until the day our father had to put him away for having sex with the telephone pole in front of the movie theater.
One of those “I can’t believe this is actually happening moments” was the day that a guy ahead of me in line at the grocery store placed one of those large gallon size cans of peaches onto the conveyor. Then, opened his pants and put his penis onto the conveyor. He looked at the cashier and said, “What do you think of that?” She picked up the peaches & crushed the guy with it. He went immediately unconscious and fell to the ground.
I don’t know whatever became of either of these … thrill seekers. But, you do have to admire their optimism.
Lawyer I knew told me this one:
22-year old comes home drunk. His mother, who he lives with, is irritated and nags him about his irresponsible behavior. He gets pissed in turn and tells her he’d rather be in jail than listen to her nag…so he calls the police. They arrive at the house and he demands to be arrested. They look at him and each other…and then ask “for what?” “Well, I’m drunk.” Yeah, but you’re of age and in your own home…that’s all legal. He insists and finally confesses to driving home drunk or something…so they arrest him.
Now, he now doubt figured he’d get a night in jail, return home in the morning and Mom would feel bad. Turned out he’d had a minor-in-possession charge at one time which meant this was a second offense, making him a repeat offender with enhanced penalties and criminal record. Because he insisted on being arrested.
The lawyer who told me this said he thanked God every day for human stupidity.
Someone just snatched an Amazon delivery from outside my door yesterday. That’s really not so dumb, but what they stole was a case of canned fish.
That’s right… they’re take was wholly mackerel.
My mother’s minivan was broken into in downtown DC while she was at work. The thief stole one of my then-7-year-old brother’s batting gloves. He left the matching glove right next to it, as well as a Gameboy and a Discman that were in the same plastic tub under the seat. Never understood that one.
Back in high school some guy hanging out around the soccer fields decided he would drop his pants in front of my girlfriend’s gym class and flash them his junk. Instead of screaming and running away, their coach yelled “Get him girls!” and they easily overtook him and gave him quite a beating until the police arrived.
A guy I grew up with robbed a local grocery store with a steak knife then hopped in a cab to get to a seedy hotel outside of town …where the cops were waiting for him. He was seen getting in the cab, they called the dispatcher who radio’ed the cabbie asking where he was headed.
Another guy I was friends with in HS burgled a home in broad daylight with the family at home. Apparently, he walked right past the husband washing the car in the driveway in the front door past the wife in the kitchen and up the stairs. When they confronted him, he just ignored them took a couple of loose jewelry items, etc… and walked out. The cops found him walking down the street a few blocks away. He had a knife, B & E tools, and a pair of panty hose in his pockets. I guess he just got lazy.
I wont (statues of elimination and all).
Late 1980s my best running buddy and I are walking home soon before the bars close when someone driving a Chevy Camaro parks the car on the street outside a bar and dashes in to grab a last round, leaving his engine running. It was a very stupid thing to do, leaving the keys in the kind of car dumb punks nearly fondle themselves over and it was far stupider still for the two of us to hop in and take it for a ride.
We had been drinking which more serves to amplify than in any way mitigate how stupid we were being and if anything in this tail is to our credit it’s that it didn’t take long for us to realize we were no longer in youthful prank, slap on the wrist territory. We were both working more or less full time and taking classes as time and money allowed, we did have something like a career plan at work and a criminal record wasn’t really part of that plan yet the simple adrenal thrill of watching that bar door to make sure it didn’t open until we were cleanly around a corner while my friend drove is something I remember to this day.
Thankfully that thrill wore off in a big darn hurry, within a few minutes we were in what the hell do we do now mode. I don’t recall deciding to rifle through the glove compartment but quickly I was looking at three different documents with the same address on them and it was only a few miles away. We stopped off at a gas station in part to top off the tank but more so to get a big handful of those paper towel things they used to give you to clean your windows with. As my buddy drove to this guy’s house I was wiping down anything I thought might have our finger prints on (except the pieces of paper I had handled, this was pre CSI where ever).
After a judicious drive by to make sure no one was on the front porch or anything we left the car in the guy’s driveway with almost a half a tank more gas than when we found it and with a considerably cleaner interior and door handles. We waited till we were a few blocks away on foot before we let ourselves laugh about anything.
A hearty golf clap to you, only dinged a few points for the wrong their.
They don’t make 'em like that anymore.
One Sunday morning I went to the local 7-eleven for coffee and got to witness the cops questioning a man who had stolen a bunch of scratch off lottery tickets from a different 7-eleven and then tried to redeem a winner at the local 7-eleven. By the time the cops took the guy away, a huge crowd had gathered to listen to the guy insist that he had bought the tickets and the 7-eleven guy was lying about them being stolen.
In general the stupidest crime is robbing a bank. The arrest rate is very high. You are going to get caught. You are going to do federal time. You are not get out of there with more this a few thousand. We had a guy rob a bank on a Friday with a note because he was going into a court mandated rehab on Monday. He used the money to go on an alcohol and drug bender for the weekend. The bank had one of the clearest security cameras I’ve seen. We had his name by the end of the day. He was caught as soon as he sobered up and crawled out of the hole he was in. So instead of going to rehab he got a chance to get clean in a federal penitentiary.
My car was broken into when I was in grad school. They stole a box that contained cassette tapes of late 80s wannabe punk bands. Joke’s on them.
Long ago, my brother and I got to go to the big city swimming pool one day. Brother wore very strong glasses, but left them on a towel while he got in the pool. When he came back, they were gone.
We went looking around and saw a boy, about 10, wearing identical glasses, which were obviously too big for him. Also, the kid was lurching around and running into things.
We simply asked the kid for the glasses back, and he returned them. What I really wanted to ask was “why???”
A NJ real estate agent I knew claimed $35K on his income tax, then went down to Florida and paid $105K CASH for a classic antique car! When the IRS came knocking, I asked him how he could be so stupid. “I bought it in Florida. I didn’t think they’d find out.”
Ah, yes, the set of laws pertaining to peeing and pooping.
Not quite as dumb as a guy who stole gift cards from the checkout display rack at a local mini-mart. He was a neighborhood kid recognized by the clerk, the police brought him in within the hour. The best part is he didn’t realize the cards had to be activated at the register when they were purchased.
I recall hearing about some kids that scaled a water tower one night to spray graffiti on it and for some reason couldn’t/wouldn’t come down. This resulted in the authorities having to go up there next morning to fetch them.
My car was broken into last August while I was at work. They got away with my prescription sunglasses, some loose change, and my snow scraper. I repeat: August.
THe part that pissed me off was that they left the door ajar, so the dome light stayed on and left me with a flat battery :mad:
Actually, stone sculptures pertaining to peeing and pooping.