I am getting gas. I am filling the tank and suddenly the local Sheriff’s office raids the gas station office! Half a dozen cop cars show up, block the exits, the whole nine yards!

I had to talk to a few officers to get my change back after the fill-up, so I was able to ask:

Me: “What are you all here for?”

Officer: “We’re busting the owner for selling fake pee for drug tests.”

My twelve-year-old cousin’s scooter disappeared. A few days later, the police call up and say that someone found it and brought it in, so I take her to the station to pick it up. She’s typically nervous with strangers but wants to try talking to the cops herself.

Cousin: “Hi… I’m here for lost and found… You have, my, um…”

Cop: *Not looking up* “Sorry, was that the scooter or the chainsaw?”

Cousin: “CAN I HAVE BOTH?”

I live in a fairly small coastal town where not much usually happens, but this week, we made county-wide news with a case of attempted grand theft. The story has to be one of the best examples of “the more you read, the worse it gets” that I have ever heard.

Our most posh neighborhood consists of a lot of mansions on the water. Apparently, the suspect tried to steal an extremely expensive kayak from the dock in the backyard of one of these mansions… in broad daylight… by paddling away in the kayak!

But it gets better. What makes this neighborhood so expensive is not just that it’s on the water, but also that through some clever engineering, the waterways there are not subject to the coastal tides, so the rich people can enjoy their boats and docks twenty-four-seven. 

How did they achieve this? By closing off the waterways with locks! So, all the police had to do was to wait for the thief, furiously paddling in his getaway kayak, to get to the lock and then sit there — for five full minutes — waiting for the gates to open. 

Needless to say, the suspect was arrested, and the posh kayaks are safe in their docks once again.

In Alaska, getting rid of nonfunctional cars through legal means tends to be pretty expensive because they usually need to be shipped “down south” for disposal. Consequently, it’s very common practice for people to abandon their derelict vehicles in whatever parking lot, bike lane, or piece of private property (rarely their own) they find most convenient. It is also common practice for these abandoned vehicles to remain in place for months at a time despite complaints, supposedly because the tow yards and police impound lots are full of other derelict, abandoned vehicles.

In January, two abandoned Subarus, complete with missing wheels and smashed windows, appeared in the parking lot of the local Little League baseball field, in clear view of a major road. Every day, I passed these cars while walking my dog and while driving to work. Around mid-April, the cars still had not been removed despite their obvious abandonment.

One evening, I took my dog out for a walk around 10:00 pm after a very long day at work. While passing by the Little League parking lot, I noticed a pristine black SUV parked next to one of the abandoned Subarus. A man appeared to be loading a box of something into the back of the SUV, and he gave me a good thirty-second death glare as I walked past on the sidewalk on the far side of the parking lot from him. He slammed down the trunk door, jumped into his car, and then blasted out of the parking lot so fast he skidded in the snow.

After getting home, I filed an anonymous tip to the cops that I thought the abandoned cars were being used as a drug drop.

Both cars were gone from the parking lot by noon the next day.

I’m only disappointed that I don’t know more about the corners of this story to share with you all.  

I work in an office building that has a bank on the main floor. Every day around 7:30 or 7:45 am, the armoured truck with the armed workers shows up to bring money to or take money from the bank.

I show up to work just before 8:00 one morning to see both the armoured truck and a downed light pole blocking the main entrance to the parking lot and one lane of traffic. The front driver’s side tire is off the rim, the rim and axle both look bent, and the light pole and box are lying over the truck box, spitting angry sparks.

A couple of hours later, I go for a dart and see that the sparks have stopped, and a tow truck has arrived, along with the police. The two armed employees are refusing to get out of the truck, citing safety policies. The tow truck driver is refusing to lift or move the truck with passengers, citing safety policies. The police officer is losing it at everyone, threatening to arrest everybody if both trucks aren’t out of traffic in the next ten minutes.  

I next go out a couple of hours later at lunch, and the armoured truck is now in the parking lot, sans tire and employees. I heard from the building manager that the tow truck driver eventually agreed to tow the truck fully into the parking lot only, with the employees inside. After another hour or so, another armoured truck showed up, the workers transferred the money, and the employees could leave.

The real question is, how fast do you have to be going in a parking lot to hit a light pole hard enough to knock it off the concrete and bend your rim and axle, and how do you even do that in a parking lot that you attend every morning? Also, does it seem super suspicious to strand an armoured truck for several hours?