Crime Doesn't Pay the Charges-Presser

No, I haven't solved the Great Camper Caper of  '19. The camper from the storage unit lot is still unaccounted for. We don't really have a stake in that investigation, other than a possible buyer for our own camper. There's more on that story another day.

Back when Hick and I lived in town, in my $17,000 house, we were victims of a theft. Hick always parked the riding lawnmower under the kitchen window, and put a piece of metal on top. I guess that was as good as a garage. It's not like it was a fancy lawnmower. We lived in a $17,000 house, by cracky! I did most of the mowing at that house, because I was off in the summer, you know, while Hick was working a lot of overtime in the city. I used the push mower. Took an hour to mow our corner lot.

Anyhoo... one night we were snuggled in the waterbed Hick had contributed to the household, when there came a knock on the door. A pounding. Hick got up to see who it was. I, myself, would have pretended not to be home. It was the police!

"Sir, do you have a riding lawnmower?"

"Uh, yes."

"Do you know where it is right now?"

"Parked around back, under the kitchen window."

"Will you go see if it's there now?"

Well, of course it wasn't there. Why else would the police come a-knockin' at 2:30 a.m.?

People on the street across the river heard something, and looked out to see three young men pushing a riding lawnmower up the road. They called the police, because even in Backroads, we can't just allow lawnmower-pushing at 2:30 a.m., or pretty soon there will be anarchy!

The police pulled over the lawnmower, and asked the guys where they were going to mow a lawn at that hour. Where did they live? Which one did the lawnmower belong to? These hardened criminals cracked under such interrogation, and admitted that they had taken the lawnmower from our house.

Oh, that's not the strange part. To get this riding lawnmower across the river (called Flat River Creek, don't even get me started, is it a river, or is it a creek), they didn't merely push it. They carried it over the swinging bridge! That's right. Three guys picked up a riding lawnmower and carried it across a swinging footbridge rather than push it four blocks to get to the vehicle bridge.

Hick took the truck to rescue the lawnmower. I guess he didn't want to hitch a ride with the police, and ride the mower home at 3:00 a.m. Hick said, "I don't know why they didn't just drive it. The key was in it."

The perpetrators got locked up. Two of them made bail, but one of them, a former student of mine (he didn't even know I lived there) had other charges. He sat in the county jail, awaiting trial. Sat there, in fact, for half a year. The wheels of justice move slowly in Backroads. Of course Hick pressed charges. He missed three days of work, months apart, to appear at the trial. Which kept getting rescheduled because time ran out before our case on Law Day.

Back then, Hick was an hourly worker, not management. Each day he missed cost him $150 in wages. On the third day he missed for court, when it was announced that the case would not be heard that day, Hick went to whoever had such power, and said, "I want to drop the charges." Of course they were shocked. Why now? What changed Hick's mind?

"That kid has sat in jail for six months already. I'm not missing more work for this. That lawnmower wasn't even worth what I've lost in wages. I don't care what you do with him, but I ain't missin' another day of work over this trial. Do what you have to do."

I can't remember if the kid got out, or if he had to wait for his other trials. All I know is that we had our lawnmower back, and Hick was tired of losing wages to do the right thing.

Did we learn our lesson about leaving our stuff out? Nah. A few months later, someone took our push mower. Is there a moral to this story? Not really. It's amazing how much your stuff appeals to people when you live in a $17,000 house.