His Theft Was Only A Smashing Success For His Nose

One night, around midnight, I realized that I’d left a book in my truck, so I headed out to retrieve it. As I stepped out the door, I spotted someone trying to wiggle out from under my truck in my driveway. At first, I thought it was a dog or something, but then he shifted into the light enough for me to realize it was a man. I shouted, and he managed to wiggle his way out and try to run off, only to trip and slam face-first into the short brick wall that borders our yard. He managed to stagger up and vault the wall, running off, but he obviously broke his nose or something, given the blood splatter that was left on the wall where he hit.

I checked under my truck and quickly worked out he’d been trying to cut off the catalytic converter, leaving some damage to the exhaust. I managed to get that patched up, shuffled some things around so I had enough space to actually pull my truck into the garage, and felt that would be the end of it. I made a report to the police and moved on.

But then, around three days after it happened, a brick got thrown through my front window with a note tied to it, telling me that I would be in “big legal problems” if I didn’t pay for the “medical damages” I’d caused, and listing a PO box that I was supposed to send a check to.

Naturally, I did not do that. Instead, I called the police and provided them with the note as well as my suspicions about what it was regarding. And, it turns out, that was enough of a lead for them to track the guy down. They got me to come in to identify him, and he was apparently linked to several other thefts and break-ins in the area. So, off he went to jail.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there. About a month after all of this happened, I came out to find a paper taped to my front door. On it was a picture of a sad-looking kid and the sentence, “I hope u proudlee like that u make child cry for papa.” It took me a second to figure out what the h*** this was talking about, but once it clicked, I took a pen and wrote, “Very, very proudly,” on the bottom of the paper, and then left it taped on the outside of the brick wall, right about the point where the would-be thief broke his nose.

The paper was gone within a couple of days. I don’t know if one of the neighbors saw it and took it down, but I like to think that whoever posted it came by and got to see that I wasn’t shedding any tears that her “baby daddy” or whatever was in jail.