Lara Zielin

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The history of National Donut Day (this Friday, people!) explained here.

So, one time my garbage was stolen. This was a couple years ago now, when Rob and I lived in our old house. I awoke to strange sounds in the middle of the night. The next day, I realized someone had made off with the trash.

Yes, the trash.

I’d like to think they stole it because even the scraps I throw away are stained with fabulous. But in my heart of hearts, I know this is not true. At the time I thought it was probably identity-theft related. Which, I still think that’s probably what it was. In my frantic “my credit card statements will now be viewed by someone else” state, I phoned the police.

I know. I clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Or at all.

The conversation went something like this.

Me: Yes, I’d like to report a theft.

Dispatcher: From what location?

Me: [gives address]

Dispatcher: And what was taken?

Me: Our garbage.

Dispatcher: Excuse me?

Me: Our garbage was stolen. I think because they wanted to steal our identities.

Dispatcher: I see. Was there anything in there that you wanted, particularly?

Me: No, not really.

Dispatcher: Do you want it back?

Me: Um, no. I guess not.

Dispatcher: What would you like us to do, ma’am?

Me: Er, nothing. Sorry to bother you.

[call ends.]

I would have liked the story to have ended there, but shortly thereafter, they sent a squad car to our house.  Yep. Even though I told them not to come, the cop car pulled into our driveway.  I explained the situation to the police officer, who was nice. He wasn’t a problem. The problem was that our neighbors saw the cop car arrive.

And they were all like, what’s up?

And then I had to tell them I’d reported our garbage being stolen.

Let me tell you, I didn’t live that one down anytime soon.

The moral of the story is that if your trash gets stolen, do not call the police. Let it go. And shred more in the future.

The end.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 2:08 am and is filed under looks like life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.