Strange Thievery in Bad Economy

When the economy is bad, home break-ins and retail pilferage increase dramatically. Apparently, so does thievery of a curious array of other items. Time magazine reported on seven of these over the past month or so. Here’s what they said was stolen and the locations where the thefts happened. See if you can match the two lists.

What was stolen:

1.     16,000 barrels of maple syrup (grade not specified)

2.     A truck with $250,000 of raw beef (if there’s any justice, they’ll get Mad Cow Disease)

3.     $100,000 of bees from their beekeeper (Peter Fonda was reportedly devastated)

4.     $3,000 of bras (assorted cup sizes; no wonder)

5.     $65,000 of chicken wings (presumably not yet barbecued)

6.     A tractor trailer with $75,000 of Campbell’s soup (it was probably chunky)

7.     Five and a half tons of Nutella (value over $25,000, and that’s not peanuts)

Locations of the thefts:

a.      Florida

b.      Florida

c.      Florida

d.     Georgia

e.      Canada

f.       Canada

g.      Germany

Looks like you just can’t trust those Southerners or those north of the border…

Here are the matched up answers:

1.     e or f

2.     a, b, or c

3.     e or f

4.     a, b or c

5.     d

6.     a, b or c

7.     g

Always a crack researcher, I dug deeper to see what unusual things have been stolen from retirees in recent months. You’ll be shocked—I say SHOCKED!—at what I uncovered.

A shipment of plaid sansabelt golf pants disappeared near Scottsdale, Arizona. The thieves are still in the wind. Mercifully the pants have not shown up either. Not surprisingly, the value of the goods is being disputed by the insurance company.

Fifty cases of prunes worth $25,000—they were soaked in vodka—were pilfered from a truck in Canada. Culprits were apprehended selling the hot prunes somewhere in Edmonton. They claimed the cases “fell off the back of a truck.” I’ve heard that one before…

A recently retired hot-dogger had his orthopedic boogie board taken from the bottom of a chairlift in Aspen. Worse yet, it was taken around 11 am and he’d purchased an all-day lift pass.

An eighty-year-old woman left her walker outside the stall in the restroom during activities night in her South Jersey retirement community. It was gone when she came out. The thief was caught leaning on it during the Electric Slide. The owner identified it from the macramé wrist strap her greatgrandson had made for her at camp.

Two pallets of diet cranberry juice went missing from a storeroom in Texas. The cost was about $2,000, not including the fees for all the urologist visits that resulted.

In North Carolina, ten cases of counterfeit hearing aid batteries found their way to a retirement home. They have no idea where the real ones were diverted. The trail has gone cold, because it was about three weeks before the residents realized the batteries weren’t working properly.

In Palm Beach, thieves made off with forty cases of old fashioned oatmeal. The entire town was out of sorts for a month. You can’t put a price on that.

Also in Florida, a shipment of Mahjong sets bound for Boca Raton vanished into thin air. What arrived in their place were Ouija boards. One day after their delivery, those also disappeared. When asked if they had any clues, investigators replied: “We think it was someone’s dearly departed, and her name began with an ‘M.’ Or maybe a ‘T.’”

Be vigilant. It doesn’t look like the economy is going to pick up any time soon and you never know what the thieves will come after next. On that note, I’m going to hide my stash of wine.