First, an admission - while all of the following is true, I made up the name Rufus, simply because I don't know the guy's name, but I need one to refer to him by. He was almost Neddy, but I digress. Apart from this fictional name, all of the following is 100% true, without any embellishment. I was going to make a series of comics based on Rufus, but I am feeling too lazy right now. Read on and have a laugh...
On Friday evening (3rd August) my wife, Bec, returned home from work to find that the back door had been kicked in, and a small number of our personal things had been stolen. I was out at the time, delivering forms for this week's Australian census, and got a call from Bec asking me to come home. We found that the VCR was gone (well, most of it - more of that later), as were two mobile phones, two videotapes (Snatch and The Full Monty), our housemate's coin collection, and a few other things.
The uniformed PCs came a couple of hours later and took a brief inventory of the situation, and the detectives came along the next day. Before the latter arrived, my wife made an interesting discovery - a chair we keep in the back yard had been moved over to the fence between our house and the house of one of our neighbours. We were instantly suspicious, since the neighbours in question had a very antisocial and out-of-place teenager staying with them. How out of place? Well, they appear to be Pacific Islanders, and he is a chubby white kid who looks like he never leaves the house. We are pretty sure he was fostered. Ever since we had moved in, we had been seeing him sitting in the window watching us come and go. Every once in a while he would abuse one of us over the fence. He was weird, and more than a tad creepy.
Bec and I, curiosity aroused, walked around to the front of the house, close to the weird kid's window. We could clearly hear the sound of a movie playing at high volume. It wasn't one of our two missing movies, but it was the first time we had ever heard him watching anything. It seemed impossible, but we thought our burglar was taunting us. We mentioned it to the detective when he arrived, and he had a peek in the window, which had been left wide open. A copy of Snatch was standing up on end next to the window, with the cover art displayed to the world. The detective also noticed a VCR, the same brand as ours, sitting on a desk. This VCR had a very interesting feature.
Years ago, when we first got our dog, he was an incessant chewer. We eventually cured him of the habit, but not before he chewed the power cord of our VCR. To repair it I had to cut the cord and splice the wires together, covering it with bright red electrical tape. Sure enough, the VCR which was clearly visible through this kid's window had a broken cord, repaired with, you guessed it, red electrical tape. That was enough for the police, and they went off to get a warrant.
Most of our stuff came back later that night, thanks to the detective. A couple of amusing things came to light at this point. Firstly, when Rufus had stolen the VCR, he had actually left the plug behind, still in the power point. When we got it back, it had a new plug (which we left on, because it is longer than the original one) which appeared to have been stolen from another appliance. Also, one of the mobile phones he stole was an old one we no longer use. We had popped the SIMM card out of it and put it in another phone months ago. When it came back from next door, it had a brand new SIMM card in it. We figure it is a prepaid SIMM card bought with the stolen coins.
In summary, some rules for budding burglars:
1) Don't rob your next-door neighbours.
2) If you must rob your next door neighbours, don't leave clear signs showing exactly who robbed them.
3) If you have been dumb enough to rob your neighbours, don't leave easily recognised stolen stuff in plain sight next to an open window.
4) If you have stolen a VCR from your neighbours, don't spend the next morning watching videos, with the volume cranked and the window open.
5) When burgling a house, don't steal the $50 automatic camera and leave the $500 SLR camera behind.
6) When burgling a house, don't steal a $250 VCR and leave three computers behind untouched.
7) When burgling a house, don't steal two videotapes and leave 250 audio CDs and 150 original CD-ROMs behind.
8) When explaining to the police that the mobile phone in your possession is one you bought yesterday, it may be somewhat embarrassing when the policeman conducting the interview asks how the three-month-old comedy festival tickets got into the box.
9) Do not take up a burgling career if you are extremely stupid.
Well, that sums up my weekend - how was yours?
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