CURBSIDE ETIQUETTE

Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess



Below you will find links to dates when new entries are added. The stories will not necessarily be in chronological order, but rather as I remember them. I am dating them so that you can skip to new ones you haven't read since the last time you visited, and so that you are more easily able to find something you found humorous to share with others.
Swamped Thieves


I have been saving this story for a week when I didn't have anything else to report. You all know I work at a junkyard during the day, right? Well, this is a "gimme" for the Police Department. There are many stories floating around about dumb thieves - such as the jokers who tried to tow away a free-standing MAC machine with a tow-chain and a 1975 Buick Riviera. When the back bumper ripped off, they fled the scene, leaving behind the back bumper, the tow chain and the license plate displayed prominently in the back bumper.

We have an ongoing problem with petty thievery here - if you ask any junkyard or salvage yard, they have all had their share of problems keeping track of inventory. You realize, of course, that "inventory" is junk and garbage, but it IS the business's livelyhood, so junk or not - it's valuable inventory and is missed when it disappears. One morning last spring, someone noticed the plastic had been cut on the green house in the back yard behind the farm house. First of all, the green house had an unlocked door, and yet, these brilliant gents started out by costing the business $700 for a new plastic "window-section". It had been less than a week earlier that a couple of the guys moved some of the tools from the garage into the green house in an effort to sort through some of the "wants" and "don't wants" laying around. Mr. P said he noticed some tools and copper pipe missing. It wasn't long before someone noticed a Buick Century stuck in the mud in the field out behind the area designated for "Salvage Yard". We have a mud pathway that leads off of the back side of the property onto an adjacent black-top road, and I guess they thought they could make a "clean" get away from the back corner of the property. Since I'm the secretery, I was elected to call the Police Department. I dialed 911,and per my former police officer neighbor, I told them "this is NOT an emergency, I'm in WD township on Kaufman Rd." The Dispatcher asked for my phone number, then asked what I was calling about. This is exactly what I said:
There's no hurry... but this is the Salvage Yard. Someone noticed that invaders cut open the unlocked green house, and removed a bunch of tools and copper tubing we had stored within. Now, we are certain things were taken by a non-employee or family member because ... wait for it ... their 1988 Buick Century is swamped in the back forty. (the dispatcher snorted, and eventually couldn't hold back. She started laughing at the stupidity of the thieves leaving a car behind. She asked if it had a license plate on it...) I said that indeed, it does. Here is the number...( she could hardly stop laughing long enough to take the number.) We determined that the car was able to make it's way in just fine, but with the extra weight of stolen tools and copper, it was unable to float it's way out. She said she'd send out a unit shortly; she didn't think there was anything else more pressing going on. She was still snickering when she hung up the phone.
I made sure to include a picture of the muddy pathway so you could understand that, not only were the thieves dumb and got swamped in the field, we had to use our BobCat to pull the Police SUV out of the mud as well. It was OUR turn to laugh.

A few days later, the owners of the Buick called to ask if they could come get their car. I have no idea how the police handled the whole thing, but that has to be one of the funniest thief stories from this place.