Crime doesn't pay....unless you do car repairs for a living.....
Topic: People/Family stories
Victim: an aggrieved or disadvantaged party in a crime or disaster.

Living in a big city after life in Small town, USA is a learning experience....to put it mildly. To put it honestly: I want my mommy!!!!

Two weeks ago, I was pulling out of the driveway to take the girls to school when I noticed our other vehicle, a Ford F150 pickup, no longer had a tailgate. We finally reasoned that it was either stolen in our driveway during the night, or it was taken while my daughter was working at the mall the night before until 10pm. We filed a police report and priced the replacement......EEEgads! Even with our car insurance, the deductible would be $500. A used one is several hundred too. So we are currently tailgate-less. I don't know what we'll do during football season...beg off of someone else's tailgate I guess. It was infuriating that someone would just take a part off our car for their own benefit. It's evil...it's selfish and criminal. I wanted to hurt someone. *blush*

Crime tip number one: If you have a pickup truck, please lock the tailgate. It makes it much harder to steal....so we have since been told.

Last night I was picking up our daughter from the mall, about 10pm. We no longer let her take the truck and park it there if she is working evenings. She was waiting there, two of the other employees waiting with her until she was safely picked up. (I really appreciate that!) She plopped into the car and I circled around between rows of empty parking spaces. *CRUNCH pop pop pop pop* (It seems that even if you don't let the teenager take the car to work, you can still be a victim of vandals.) She got out of the car and looked at the tire, thinking we'd run over glass. But there were domino-looking plastic things stuck into the tire. They were security tags off of stolen clothing! Four of them, poked into my back tire.

She pulled them off and exclaimed, "OH, I'm bleeding....am I bleeding? ....is that blood?....What IS that? ewwwww, it's all over me!"

It was then that we realized, while listening to that hissing sound of air escaping a tire, that the were ink tags. Yeah, my daughter is now at school with ink stained fingers, probably causing lots of suspicion among peers and teachers. And I reeeeeally want to hurt someone. I'm getting extremely vivid mental pictures of ways to punish vandals. =( I guess the shoplifters were angry about the ink, which ruins the stolen merchandise, so they left the tags sharp side up, in the parking lot among some paper trash from a fast food place.

Crime tip number two: never, EVER run over trash in a parking lot. More often than you may think (or not be thinking much at all) it is disguising all sorts of tire popping devices.

So the car repair place is getting some business today, patching holes in our tire. At least someone benefits from this.

I'm disgusted with humanity today. (including my own)