One Hot Heist

My brother has always had a temper, so it came as no surprise to me or my siblings when our mother called to tell us that he had been arrested. My parents, naturally, were shocked, given that they were in the mindset that their kids could do no wrong, but for the rest of us, the only surprise was in what actually ended up getting him arrested.

The story, as far as I can interpret through the face-saving my brother and mother tried to do, was that someone had started to leave nasty messages on my brother’s windshield, supposedly “unprovoked.” They were things along the lines of, “Your car is ugly,” “You’re a horrible person,” and, “Go kill yourself.” My brother hatched the “brilliant” plan to try and catch this person rather than doing something like telling the landlord of the apartment complex or just, you know, ignoring the juvenile notes and moving on with his life.

He parked his car, got out, and then hid himself in a tall set of bushes nearby and proceeded to sit there for several hours. In the middle of summer. In California.

Finally, one of his neighbors parked nearby and then walked over with a note that they put onto his windshield. At that point, my brother jumped out of the bushes and rushed the guy, swinging at him with a large stick he’d found in the bushes as he was crouching there. He missed, denting his own car hood, and then the guy took a swing back at him and actually hit.

They started brawling until the police showed up and they both got arrested.