Book thief!

Voltaire is supposed to have said, "Only your friends steal your books." I have not been able to find the quote to verify it, although it sounds like him. I have also heard a version as "Enemies steal your money; friends steal your books."

Nevertheless, there is truth to it. 

A friend of mine has recently found himself with time on his hands, and mentioned that for the first time in many years he is looking for books to read. I happily loaned a few from my library, most of which he enjoyed. 

Then he gave them away to other people. 

This is one reason why friends steal books -- if they are not true book lovers, they don't see the value in keeping a book at hand. Then they pass them along, figuring everyone should enjoy this nice book. I honestly had not anticipated this, but when he told me that he gave one of my books to his son and another to a friend, I knew I'd never see them again. 

"That's my book in your pocket, isn't it?"
“No, I’m just happy to see you. And
I have a rectangular schmeckele.”

I can sort of understand it, and yet at the same time I don't. No one does this with anything else. If I leant him a coat or my car or some tools, I know I'd get them back. He is very honest. I'm pretty sure if I'd leant him a DVD, he would not send it along downstream for someone else to watch. And yet hardcover books and many paperbacks are more expensive than CDs and DVDs. Maybe they expect you’ll watch a movie over and over, but no one ever rereads a book.

When I've stolen a book from a friend, I did it the old-fashioned way -- forgot to return it. Sometimes the book didn't grab me, or I had no time, and was determined to get back to it, only to find years later that it had been in my possession far longer than it ever had been in his. That's not larceny, which requires intent, but I still didn't give the book back.

Well, my pal still is looking for things to read, so you can figure what I have done -- I've bought him some as a Christmas present. I hope he enjoys them, and the same to whomever he sends them to next. I will not have to worry about those books. 

Fat can.

I repent for my wayward youth, throwing beer cans everywhere, emptying ashtrays at the traffic light, chucking wrappers wherever. The world was my garbage can, and I try to make some small amends now by picking up garbage on my little walks with the dog. Remember the inflatable pool alligator I spotted a few weeks ago? No one ever claimed it, (the house whose front yard it was in has no pool), and it had blown out farther to the curb, so one trash day I picked it up on my way home with the pup and put it in my own can. See ya later, Alligator. 

Tuesday morning, around five a.m., I noticed that my neighbor's trash can had fallen over. It hadn't made a big mess, but it was on its side. Izzy dog wanted no part of it, but I thought it would help the garbage men if I set it upright. I was surprised at how heavy it was -- and was far more surprised when an enormous fat raccoon stirred himself from the depths and jumped out of the can. I let go, and let out a yelp; the raccoon gave himself a shake and went on his way as fast as he could -- which, being big and having just been awakened, was not all that fast. Fortunately Izzy chose not to get involved.

The raccoons I have known have been pure scavengers, peace-loving bandits who only wish to take what they desire and slip away without confrontation, the high-class jewel thieves of the garbage-dining community. Only when rabid do they seek to plant those claws and teeth into others, and then, look out -- you may both be going down. 

About the same time I enjoyed my shocking encounter, this meme swam into my attention:

I know several people who claim that this reflects them. As for me, I am a morning person, and I am not small, and my cuteness is debatable but not probably obvious. However, I do claim some kinship with these little rovers, and I find them much more agreeable than other yard jerks like squirrels, deer, and mice, or even chipmunks. And come on, look at that face. 

All things said, I am a bit partial to raccoons and will try not to surprise any anymore. I will not pick up a downed trash can without giving it a gentle wakeup kick -- rude, but not as rude as the garbage man heaving the can into the back of the truck. And I will always keep a firm lid on my own garbage cans. 

Dog burglar.

Merriam-Webster tells us that the term cat burglar goes back to 1907, and means "a burglar who is adept at entering and leaving the burglarized place without attracting notice". Although it was probably the inspiration for Batman's nemesis/girlfriend Cat Woman, the term seems to have gone out of fashion (just like second-story man) as a means of describing a particular kind of theft. And why not? If you can just walk into Target and walk out with whatever your little arms can carry, why go sneaking around? 

Nevertheless, as a dog owner, I wonder what kind of a thief would be considered a dog burglar. I just wonder.... [Cue wavy fadeout as scene cuts to the sketch]

[Scene: Dead of night, Suburbia, USA]

Wife: What's that?

Hubs: HMph?

Wife: I heard something downstairs.

Hubs: Mmmblmm.

[Hubs schleps downstairs. At door SFX: scratch scratch]

Hubs: Huh? [Opens door]

Dog Burglar: Thanks thanks thanks! I was whining for hours and hours!

Hubs: Hey, wait--

DB: Can I come in? Thanks! Say, where do you keep your valuables? It smells great in here! 

Hubs: Valuables? You got the wrong house, brother.

DB: There! [Opens fridge]

Hubs: That's what you want? You're hungry?

DB: Not really but -- Oh, wow! You got ham and turkey and even cheese! Okay if I steal some?

Hubs: Well, er...

[1 hour later]

Wife: What the hell's going on down here?

Hubs: Hi, honey! We're just having a little midnight snack.

Wife: At three a.m.?

Hubs: This is my new best friend, Finnegan.

DB: Hi, glad ta know ya. I love your house.

Wife: Uh... thanks? Hey, is that the leftover ham? That was supposed to be dinner tonight.

DB: Welp, gotta go! Thanks so much, Sam! I love you. And you too, Mrs. Sam! [exits promptly]

Hubs: What a nice guy.

Wife: Why did he steal one of my boots on the way out?

Mission: Get into places and back out.

In the old Mission: Impossible show, the one thing you could always count on was that the team would have really good forged papers. They never got caught because they used a Form 13-F when the guards would have expected a Form 16-B. Peter Lupus just handed over the clipboard, a guy looked at it, and soon a mysterious crate with Greg Morris inside would be delivered. Later it would open up and the cat burglar would get to work. 

In the days pre-9/11, a friend of mine was convinced that you could get into any office building in Manhattan with a clipboard and maybe a lanyard. Just look like you know what you're doing and brazen it out. Sometimes it wouldn't even be that big a deal. I read an article about how gorgeous the lobby and elevators are in the Chrysler Building, so one day I just went in there wearing my suit and tie. Went straight in, rode in the elevator, left. Didn't even have to sign a guest book. (They are gorgeous, BTW.)

The clipboard act might have been worth a try to get into more secure properties back in the day. But security began to tighten after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and now, well, it would be easier to get a four-ounce bottle on an airplane than to sneak into a building with such a simple trick. 

However, something tells me this probably would still work.

It's the same principle as my old pal's clipboard gag -- use the appearance of mission and authority to do what you're not supposed to do. It won't work in a Manhattan office building now, but apparently you can take whatever you want from stores. This is partly because security in a Walmart isn't that great, but partly because no one cares anymore. If Target and other stores in California are just going to let looters and thieves take off with whatever, why should a branch in, say, Omaha care that much? 

So that's the world we've built in the new millennium -- maximum security for everyday schmucks, crooks running wild in the streets. For the first time in my life I hear about stores being shut down because people are stealing too much. That's serious. Ordinary petty theft is a minor infection; this kind of thievery is a fatal disease. The parasite has taken over the organism.

I had another friend whose son got in trouble with the law back in the oughts. This Napoleon of crime had the idea with his buddy to go into Target, grab all the video game discs they could hold, and dash out the door. So, the kid got a criminal record for his trouble. Now it appears he wasn't an idiot, he was just ahead of his time. 

Mailbox of doom?

We all know, or should know, that ATM use has its risks. People in urban areas (what we used to call cities) are routinely warned to be cautious when using any sort of cash machine, especially at night and especially in dodgy neighborhoods. Dumb punks will rob you as soon as you have your dough, even force you to take out more. Smart punks will use skimmers to get your card data and clear out your accounts. When security cameras were placed in the machines and the surrounding areas, they helped deter some of these bad acts, at last for a while. However, these days our big-city district attorneys don't seem much interested in prosecuting even violent crime, so why should the criminals worry?

And even in places where they do prosecute theft and violence, you might get jugged. 

Jugging is the delightful practice wherein the punk follows the ATM user for some distance, sometimes far from the point of cash withdrawal if by car, and when the victim is in a less secure location, helping himself to the cash. 

"The robber then follows the customer outside the establishment before taking the money from the victim or breaking into the person's vehicle, most often at a new location but sometimes outside the bank," as the Austin American-Statesman describes it. "'There, they are approached, threatened with violence, or assaulted while the suspect demands the money or aggressively takes the cash bag,' the Austin Police Department said in a statement."

So the common ATM is increasingly a hotspot for crime. But what of the more mundane, totally anodyne United States Postal Service mailbox? 

Glad you asked!

"Whether you’re sending holiday cards or gifts, or just mailing your monthly rent check, you may want to avoid using those large, blue collection boxes—at least for the next few months, United States Postal Service (USPS) officials have advised," writes Elizabeth Yuko at Lifehacker. Well, that's all right; no one sends any mail around the holidays, do they?

You'll be hard-pressed to find the relevant press releases from the USPS's own site, which has a tendency to BAD REQUEST you out of anything that isn't brand-new, but according to KY3 in Springfield, Missouri, here's the problem:

Before you drop an envelope in one of those blue boxes, United States Postal workers want you to keep a few things in mind.

USPS reported an increase in thefts from these boxes during the holiday season. Here are a few precautions to make sure your gifts are delivered.

First, look at the time of the last collection for the day on the front of the blue box. Make sure you are putting your mail in the boxes before that time. You don’t want your letters or packages sitting overnight or over holidays and weekends when thieves could target the boxes.

“One of the best things that you can do is hand it off directly to your postal carrier, obviously, then it’s already in their hands, and it’s into the system,” said United States Postal Inspector Paul Shade. “The other option would be to take it directly into the post office. And obviously, it would have to be during regular business hours, but that’s the most secure way to protect your mail.”

Yeah, well, the one time we had something stolen in transit it was a Home Depot gift card in a birthday card, and it was stolen right out of the USPS processing center in Brooklyn and used at a Home Depot in that borough before we even knew it was missing. Of course we filed a complaint, but we never heard anything -- and of course the money was gone forever. So your trusty postal worker, especially some asshat hired to help out during the busy season, may also not be so trusty. 

Still, I guess it's better than leaving anything in a secure mailbox, which is secure. Everyone knows tampering with the mail is a federal offense, and that means real trouble, right?

Ha. Yeah.

What's going on out there? We can't use ATMs, let alone the bank itself. We can't answer our doors, because burglaries are on the rise, especially in cities. Every house in America is getting security cameras, willfully pushing along a dystopian end of privacy for the fear of violence and theft. And now we can't use the friendly blue mailbox? Meanwhile, despite the cameras and guards, retail giants like Target are losing hundreds of millions because they can't stop organized shoplifting rings; no one gets arrested and no one goes to jail. (I'm no fan of Target, but this is ridiculous.)

You know, the whole rampant crime issue was supposed to be the real needle-mover on the midterm elections, and is certainly a prime issue with which most adults have been grappling. But there seems to be a lack of understanding among freshly minted idiot voters. In City Journal, John O. McGinnis writes: 

When I get together with friends, the conversation often turns to their children’s political views, which are almost always significantly more liberal than theirs. Sometimes, their children’s stances are so far to the left as to baffle them. The daughter of one friend supported prison abolition, but she could not explain to her father how this policy could possibly work in practice.

This last bit really caught my eye. I've heard the term "prison abolition" before, and when it's accompanied by the slightest attempt to suggest a replacement for imprisonment, it's a thin goo of psychological service promises and equity spending. 

We've been using psychology on criminals for over a century; we've been social-spending out the bazooty since LBJ's Great Society; and yet crime and our cities become worse. There will always be human beings who would rather steal than work; there will always be psychopaths who want to kill and destroy; there will always be sociopaths and narcissists who think they deserve whatever they can take; and there will always be people whom a decent society will have to incarcerate to protect the innocent. Attempts to reform the guilty are admirable and important, but they are a distant second to providing protection for the innocent and justice for the injured. Anyone who can't understand that has been educated beyond intelligence and into a world of pure emotional nonsense. 

In the end, there are only three ways I know of to keep bad actors away from their victims:

1) Lock them up for a period society finds fair for their crimes;

2) Butcher them and drop them in mass graves (a favorite of socialist revolutionaries, who like to throw in political opponents as well); or

3) Let the beasts run wild and force everyone else to live imprisoned behind high walls, sharp cameras, barred windows. 

Hey, kids! You're all about the fairness. Does choice #3 seem fair to you? Does it seem like equity that your grandma can't leave the house, or mail you a check from the postal box? Maybe your college professor or online influencer or favorite musician has his or her head up his or her behind? Just a thought.

He did that.

I was gassing up my little car the other day -- a painful operation, especially here in deep blue New York, when I noticed a couple of things at the pump. 

I'm not 100% sure that the removed sticker on the price line was one of those "I Did That" Joe Biden stickers that have been irritating the president, but I'm almost 100% sure that the one to the left of the window is. 

This isn't the first time I've seen them in New York, either. Now, I will note that geographically, most of New York State is pretty red, including a fair bit of Orange County, where I live. Across the river is Westchester, where rich people who couldn't care less if gas hit $10 a gallon live, but the OC is a little closer to the bone. That's why they had to gerrymander our Congressional district a while back to link us up with part of Westchester; we kept sending the wrong people to Washington. 

People have said if you cut off everything north and west of Albany you'd have a really conservative state, so much so that Buffalo would be a blue outlier. I am inclined to think it could be true, especially as of this year.

Here's another sticker I saw at the pump, one that was also new but courtesy of the management:

Hmm.

At first I thought this warning was for people trying to get gas out of the pump without paying, although I am not sure how this would be done. I think you have to pay in advance if you're using cash at this station. And if you don't, how would they know you're unauthorized before you try to skip out? 

A little digging tells me that this may be a notice to warn off people who plant credit card skimmers. Because it's not hard enough to pay for a tank of gas that would have doubled the value of my first car; now I have to give my credit card up to thieves. So I'm glad the station is being proactive -- but are they, really? This isn't much of a warning. "You try anything and... we'll make it not work" isn't much of a disincentive to thievery. "You plant a skimmer on this machine and we deliver 5,000 volts through you" would be. 

Alas! That much juice would probably be dangerous around all that gasoline. It's not a perfect world, is it? And so many attempts to push it that way result in more problems. 

PBJ.

I don't get to the dollar store much anymore, but I found myself there last week, looking for something that they didn't have. C'est la vie.

But there's always something to get. This dollar store was Dollar General, whose model is not "everything for a dollar" but more like "everything for a round number." Nothing is $2.99 or .69 at Dollar General; it might be $3 or Two for $1, but it's round.

Anyway, I was lured out of my attempted Improved Diet Plan 2020 by this house-brand product:

Yes, I am six years old. The truth has come out.

No, there is a reason for this, and it has to do with a family story from about the time I was six or so. Not a tale of Dickensian deprivation, but I was the victim here!

Many of you may be familiar with Goober, a brand of peanut butter Smucker's has been selling since 1968. The gimmick is that the PB is combined in the jar with alternating stripes of jelly, either grape or strawberry. This came to my notice well into my PBJ-eating experience, and I was immensely curious about this technological dietary innovation. How did they get the PB and J in the same jar like that? Was it good peanut butter (who could trust Smucker's, a brand known for its jelly?), or just a lame way to move more of the flagship stuff? Was it much more convenient for making sandwiches, or eating right out of the jar, especially for a wide-eyed tot? And most of all: WAS IT AWESOME?

I had no way of knowing. My mom wouldn't buy it. My dad was a dedicated jelly-on-toast guy, so she thought it was dumb to buy this when we had to have jelly around anyway.

Okay, I could take that. Mom had to say no to us kids about 976,934 times a week, mostly at the supermarket.

Here's the cruel part. We were going to visit a beloved relative, one who had no kids of her own, and she asked mom what we ate. Thinking of me, my mother said PBJ; if you are what you eat, I was probably a good third peanut butter and jelly, a third Cap'n Crunch, and the other third all that useless stuff like fruit and lima beans and pot roast. So dear relative went shopping, was amazed by the edible technology on display in the Goober & Grape, and bought a jar. She was still curious when she got home, so she opened the jar had a little taste.

AND ATE THE WHOLE THING!

It was all gone before we got there. Every ounce. All we had was a funny story. Well, they thought it was funny. I laughed dryly, defeated. Ha. Ha.

Mom did not ease my disappointment by buying a jar when next we shopped. The rules of spending money were not ironclad, but they were at least leadclad. I don't remember ever trying it. When I was out of the house I didn't buy PB that much; at the time the jars seemed kind of pricey and I needed money for important things (beer). But when I saw this jar in the Dollar General, it all came flooding back. I finally bought my own.

And... it's okay.

The problem is not the quality of the ingredients but the gimmick itself. You can't get it out of the jar without mushing the peanut butter with the jelly, which gets the flavors get mixed up -- and the PB crushes the J. Layering it traditionally gives more balance to the flavors, allowing the jelly to shine. It wasn't bad by any means, but by diminishing the jelly taste it loses some of the benefit promised by the process -- PB and J, coequal partners in a brave new venture.

Also, the mushed peanut butter/jelly schmear looks bad.

Smucker's original may be better, might other store brands like Ralphs Yipes! Stripes! (yes really), but I suspect the issue I bring up is baked in the pie, so to speak.

Well, I may have been a little disappointed, but I think justice at long last was done. Or something.

A sandwich was done. And I ate it. And it was okay.

Hacked up.

I got one of those hack messages via e-mail the other day that was pretty good. It came from the e-mail of an acquaintance, and it looked legit, asking for help. I wrote back, 'cause I'm stoopid that way, and got this:

I'm so glad you reply back i could not inform everyone about my trip to Manila Philippines for a program because it was impromptu. The program was successful, but my journey has turned sour I was mugged at gun point and all my valuables were stolen (cash, credit cards and phone), where I went for sightseeing before leaving to the airport since my return flight is in few hours. Luckily I had my passport in my hotel room to get me home.Its was a terrible experience. all i need now is $1,950 (or whatsoever you can afford) to settle some outstanding hotel bills and also take a cab to the airport. I have contacted my bank, but the best they can do is to mail a new card which will take 2 to 3 days to get here.Western Union Transfer is the fastest option to wire the funds to me. Please let me know if you can help me out? I promise to make the immediate refund when i get home, 

Ultimately it was a more clever con than most, right down to using my pal's name to receive cash from Western Union.

The hacker got extremely fortunate on two fronts:

1) The acquaintance whose account he unlocked is not a wordsmith, just an average joe who never went for college and never worked in a job that required writing skills. So the poor writing was not a giveaway.

2) I had not heard from the fellow for some time, but this wasn't completely out of the blue; not like we hadn't seen each other since kindergarten. We did have each other's e-mail addresses.

3) Of all the dozens upon dozens of acquaintances I have, if I had to pick one guy who would get himself in trouble in a foreign country and need to be bailed out, it could very well be this guy. We've all got one buddy, and maybe lots more, who would be voted Most Likely to Wind Up Nude, Screwed, and Tattooed Halfway Around the World.

Still, it just didn't sound like the man I knew, who might ask for money but would go about it differently. I was able to alert the guy through other channels that his account had been invaded. He closed the e-mail account and the hacker was foiled.

I freaking hate these guys. I think the first two e-mail messages ever sent were:

A1: HI

B2: AM IN PERIL WIRE MONEY

I think this happened a lot. The first transatlantic cable message was "Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace, goodwill toward men." The reply: "Send five hundred dollars to this account." Alexander Graham Bell's first phone message was "Mr. Watson — Come here — I want to see you." Maybe Watson replied, "Send money right away." The first telegraph message, from DC to Baltimore, was "What hath God wrought?" The reply: "Send bank account number for Nigerian transfer." The first message transmitted from space to earth was, "This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one: Through this unique means I convey to you and to all mankind, America's wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere." The reply: "Send money for great work at home plan make fifty thousand a month."

Technology marches on, but douchebags are always with us.

That frosty mug guilt.

It was a discussion about the Sonic burger chain on the Lileks Bleat site that reminded me of my thievery. It was not at a Sonic, though, that my villainy occurred, but rather at an A&W.

One hot summer day, many years ago, my parents and I pulled into A&W to get dinner. I don't remember where the rest of the family was; unusual that it was just me and the folks. It really was a miserably hot day and Dad had no air conditioner in the car. He believed the vent window was all you needed. Which was okay, if you weren't standing still, and didn't mind ashes blowing back at you backseat denizens. Why we decided to go to a drive-in restaurant when it was hot and the car had no air, I do not recall. But we all loved A&W.

We each got two frosty glass mugs of root beer, that's how hot we were, how cold their root beer was. Those hefty glass mugs weighed like a pound empty, so beautiful with that ice dripping down the outside, oh so glorious on an evening as relentlessly boiling as the day had been.

It was fun, I remember that. No one was fighting; no one was mad. I wish I could remember what had been going on. I was at an age when you feel like you're a porcupine, quills always at attention, but there was none of that. It seemed like we were all happy to have some awesome root beer, and happy to be together, no matter how hot the car was.

My dad handed me the second mug after I'd drained the first, and having nowhere to put the empty, I just placed it in the well. In the fuss of burger wrappers and napkins and all I must have accidentally kicked it under my dad's seat. After we ate, we got all the debris loaded onto the tray, pressed the button for service, left a tip, and off we went.

That was more than twenty-five years ago and more than seventy miles away. That A&W is gone. The car is gone. Mom and Dad are gone.

Here's the mug.

That was not the last time I ever went to that A&W, but it was the last time I saw glass mugs handed out to the cars. Sorry, everyone. I feel like I need to confess, like Raskolnikov, like my inner Sonia is urging me, "Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a mug stealer!’ Then God will send you life again."

When we found it we didn't quite know how to return it. My folks didn't think it was a big deal. I didn't swipe it as a souvenir or hold on to it in the hopes that someone would invent an Internet and an eBay and I could sell it for a gazillion dollars. It really was a dumb mistake via automobile. Petit larceny auto.

I've used it many times since. It is one tough piece of glassware.

I'm sorry I accidentally stole the mug. But I'm glad I have it nonetheless, to remember a hot summer evening in a really hot station wagon, with two of the people I love best, two people whom I miss the most.