Dear thief

Okay, so maybe not ‘dear,’ eh?

The fact is, I spent much of the day - since Mary called this morning to tell me to come home because the garage was broken into - thinking of you in somewhat less friendly terms. This is not the first time we’ve been burgled but I have to say it’s no less infuriating the second time around. So you’ll excuse me if my initial impression of you, sight unseen, is less than charitable.

I’ve long understood that there are people like you in our world. Which is not to say I understand why there are people like you in our world. I can’t comprehend a mindset in which it’s okay to break into someone’s garage and ransack the place. I’ve tried and tried to visualize you, to no avail.

Oh sure, there are some things I know about you.

I know from what you took and what you left that you’re not really very good at the thief business. Hint: You took a hobbyist scroll saw and left behind an air compressor, proving you’re either stupid or a weakling. You took the cheap plastic toolbox and left the good one, took the ancient Sears jigsaw and left the really fine and fairly new Black and Decker. The list goes on.

I know that you’re a coward. The dogs that scared you off are both small and eager to meet a stranger. But perhaps you were afraid I’d hear them and come out to pound your sorry ass. Which, now that I think of it, would be a reasonable fear.

You broke into the freezer and stole some of the food there. Which leads me to ask, ‘Really, Lean Cuisine?’ You took six Lean Cuisines and left five pounds of jumbo shrimp? And I know the barking Chihuahua probably made you color your culottes but leaving a stack of pizzas to thaw on the garage floor qualifies as a food felony. And the ravioli you left on top of the shop vac – really?

A few of the things you took were special to me. My Lion miter trimmer. My chip lifter. Tools that not one woodworker in a thousand owns and fewer would know how to use well. Those hurt. Because they were items I’d hoped to pass on. My antique block plane. With the chisel well sharpened and the breaker set just so, that plane could take a shaving you could read through. I used that one building my daughters’ ‘big girl beds.’   Please don’t let it be a doorstop. Please sell that one so it might find its way back to someone who will appreciate it – it’s needs a working life.

I could go on but really, why? There’s no point trying to reason with a cretin.

It’s been a tough year for us McDermotts on a lot of fronts. We didn’t need this. On the other hand, having weathered an assault and several deaths in the family and with an ignorant, bigoted buffoon soon to occupy the Oval Office, your incompetent foray into burglary doesn’t even make the top ten in terms of stressors.

Still, we could have done without your attentions.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you. Do you really not know how of little consequence you are? You choose to steal from those who’ve spent a lifetime working hard and frequently doing without. If it weren’t for sexual predators, child abusers and perhaps hagfish, you would represent the absolute lowest life form on earth.

I sent my afternoon blanking off the window to ensure you can’t come back for the compressor and the shrimp, a dull chore for a guy who can do what I can with wood. This weekend I will spend hours putting things right, cleaning up after you and cataloguing our loss for the police and the insurance company. And then, I will put you out of my mind.

There are people in this world who have nothing and yet don’t steal. They are worth my time and attention. You are not.

Congratulations on being nothing.