Redneck Crime

I have only lived in the middle of nowhere for 7 years. Before
that I had a house in town. A $17,900 house. But that's
another story.

We lived on a corner 2 blocks from Main Street in a little
redneck town of about 4500 people. There was quite a
bit of traffic by our house, so I guess people could see what
treasures we had out in the open. The treasures of someone
who owns a $17,900 house, mind you.

We were sleeping soundly in our waterbed one night, (the
preferred bed of rednecks), until we heard someone pounding
on the front door. My husband got up to see who it was,
and found a city police officer.

"Sir, do you have a riding lawnmower?"
"Uh...yes."
"Do you know where it is right now?"
"Parked around back under the kitchen window."
"Will you go see if it's there now?"

Well, of course it wasn't there. Why else would the police
come a-knockin' at 2:30 a.m.?

It seems that some people on the street across the river
had heard something and looked out to find 3 young men
pushing a riding lawnmower up the road. They called the
police, because you know, even though we are rednecks,
we just can't put up with lawnmower-pushing at 2:30 a.m.
We have to have some semblance of civilization, or it will
be anarchy!

The police made the guys pull over the lawnmower, and
asked where they were going to mow a lawn at that hour.
Where did they live? Which one did the lawnmower belong
to? These hardened criminals finally cracked, and admitted
that they took the lawnmower from our house.

Oh, but that's not the strange part. To get this riding lawnmower
across the river (which is named Flat River Creek--don't get
me started, is it a river, or is it a creek?) they didn't just push it.
They carried it over a swinging bridge! That's right, 3 guys
picked up a riding lawnmower and carried it across a swinging
bridge instead of pushing it an extra 4 blocks to the regular
bridge.

So my husband had to take the truck to rescue the lawnmower.
He said, "I don't know why they didn't just drive it. The key
was in it." But hey, it was 2:30 a.m. The guys got locked up.
One was a former student of mine, but he didn't know it was
my house he was stealing from. He couldn't make bail, so he
sat in the county jail awaiting trial.

My husband had to go to court 3 times. The trial kept getting
put off because they ran out of time on law day. He missed
3 days of work. At that time he was an hourly worker with
a lot of overtime. It cost him $150.00 a day in missed wages.
Finally, he dropped the charges. "The kid has sat in jail for
6 months already. I'm not missing more work for this. The
lawnmower wasn't even worth what I've lost in wages."

Did we learn our lesson about storing our valuables in plain
sight? Of course not. A few months later someone took our
push mower. Is there a moral to this story? Not really.
But is seems like lawnmowers are redneck gold.