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Can *you* solve this mystery?


On Sunday, February 20th, we did not receive our New York Times. This was disconcerting, not only because C was denied her crossword, and had to phone some useless hotline and double-check our subscription, but because I would have nothing to do while I ate my cereal in the morning, all the following week, nothing to do but sit there and ruminate on doom-filled things (what I would do if I had a flamethrower, death-ray vision, the power to make people explode, etc). Obviously, this is not good for me.

The following Sunday, February 27th, we (again!) did not receive our New York Times. This time it was not nearly the same kind of mystery.

I heard footsteps on the front porch around 5:30 a.m. I thought, O good, our New York Times. Then I heard more footsteps on our front porch around 6:15 a.m. and I thought, O, maybe that was our neighbour I heard before (it's hard to tell sometimes -- we have the same creaking wood muffled under snow).

But when I went to get our New York Times at 7 a.m, it was not there. Instead, there were two sets of footsteps leading to and from our mailbox.

We won't be calling in Poirot for this one.

The front step seems to be *the* place to steal things from. People walk by and say, I'll have that. C had a decorative paving stone at the front of our walk. No one will steal that, she said. Then someone stole it.

My grandpa, who lived in western Saskatchewan, once went to the cops to complain about some kids stealing/siphoning gas from his car. The cops just shrugged. My grandfather, who was an electrician, threatened to "wire up" the car so that these kids would get a nasty surprise. You can't do that, the cops said. That won't stop me, my grandpa said. So then the cops did something about it.

But how do you wire up a newspaper?

Comments

  1. oh what a hateful thing to do especially with the Sunday Times! It might be fun though to have Poirot there..his mere presence might put off the thief. Hopefully your paper will be restored. Thinking a big ugly dog in the front yard could do the trick..maybe you could borrow someones' for a day or two?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:26 pm

    Jon says get an iPad and NYT app cheapskate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. tape a scorpion to the inside of the newspaper

    ReplyDelete
  4. Being a Winnipeg "North End" chick,I have learned lots of ways to keep hands off my stuff. Why don't you get one of those locked mail boxes? Just make the slot wider for newspapers. Easy enough I figure. Or you can sit on your front step, drink beer (Lucky seems to be the brand of choice on my street) and scare all the neighbours. (And as a bonus: this is where your flamethrower and death-ray vision can come in handy. Just sayin'.)

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  5. I used to love reading the Sunday papers in Ireland! But here, they lack substance and I generally don't bother.

    Maybe the tealeaf thinks you should be reading something homegrown. I second Michelle's suggestion - mind you drinking beer on the stoop at 5.30am on a Sunday in the freezing cold . . . . you would have to *really* want that paper!

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  6. At least you solved the mystery! Could you set up one of those movement-triggered lights or something? If you set it to recognise your weights, you could set it to go off when an unfamiliar weight steps on the porch - not just the light but a voice asking (with a Poirot accent, of course) "who is that at my door?"
    Or not...

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  7. I say get up super early, wrap cat poop (or Oona poop) in the paper and put it back out. That ought to solve the issue.

    Get it?

    issue?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous5:55 pm

    Smear the inside with Vaseline or honey.

    ReplyDelete

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