What my brief burglary career taught me...(OT)

[Guest guest]

Graduation times are here. You see it everywhere: in advertising and in stores, special offers on suits and dresses, displays of "graduation bouquets", and all the graduation gifts, teddy bears and the likes (like this one: http://www.buttericks.se/cache/medium/1142.jpg ), easily recognizable in that they have ribbons meant to make it possible to hang it around the neck of the person graduating (because you are usually not able to hold all the bouquets and other gifts you receive in your hands or even in your arms). And the ads for graduation posters (like this one: http://www.deboprint.se/img/plakat.png), meant to be carried by the family of the high school graduate (to make it possible for the poor graduating kid to find them in the crowds outside the school...see this photo: http://mj.barczyk.se/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/studenten-2008-001-aa.jpg). Etc. etc. etc.It sort of takes me back. Today (on a very warm bus...), I remembered the day of my graduation and how I went to pick up the wine I had bought for the party (yeah, my mom had bought some too, but I guess I was kind of worried that she hadn't bought enough...). I had left the wine in the house used by the youth association I was the chair person for. A house I normally had the keys for. But this particular day I had lended the key to another guy on the board (my secretary had wanted him nominated for the board, but regretted it deeply very often after he ended up there, he was just not very reliable). However, reliable or not, I could not refuse to lend the house keys to a member of the board. I sure looked for a reason that would justify it... But I didn't find any, and hopelessly honest me saw no other way than to hand him the keys. And on that day of all days! But I did make him swear he'd be meet me at the house – and on time! – when I needed to pick up the wine and bring it home before going to school for graduation.Nevertheless, I did have a bad feeling about it as I walked over there that morning. And sure enough, he was nowhere to be seen. I waited outside for a while, then went in to the back yard, hoping that MAYBE he was there smoking or having coffee, or something, and didn't hear me knocking. But no. Of course not. But I did discover that someone had left a window open in the bottom floor office. Because we had a lot of burglary we had the window protected by sturdy burglar bars, so I couldn't just enter through the open window, but I did manage to reach in and pull the telephone on the desk close enough for me to use it (this was before cell phones...), and call the missing board guy. But sure enough, he wasn't at home either. I tried to remove one of the bars, to allow me entry, but no luck. Had to try getting in anyway, time was running away from me. Little by little I managed to crawl in through the barred window (it involved a dangerous dive and some scraping of clothes, arms and shoulders, but I managed. Luckily enough I was not yet in my graduation suit. Had jeans and a casual t-shirt on, and they did look a bit worse for the ride when I landed shoulder first in the office behind the bars... I quickly got my wine, on the upper floor, but still without keys I couldn't just walk out the door, and I wouldn't risk the crawl through the barred window carrying glass bottles... The burglars who didn't come through a window used the back door, I remembered. The locks there were just hardly worthy of the name locks. Well, let's take a tip from the more experienced, I thought. Said and done, out through the back door and down the back stairs. Then I remembered, we had blocked that way with heaps of building material, to make it burglar safe, since it was not a way we ever used anyway. OK. So I apparently had to dig through pieces of concrete, bricks, stones and lumber to get out. Great! Just what I needed... I was sweaty before, since it was a warm day, and that exercise sure didn't make it better. Not to mention, my clothes soon went from "a bit worse for the ride", to hardly recognizable... But out I got, squeezed myself and my wine through the small corridor I had managed to dig through the debris. I am not what you'd call a hardened criminal, my experience of burglary is limited to that afternoon, but it did teach me that breaking and entering is a dirty, dirty business. Literally... But then came the real surprise of the adventure. Looking like I just described, angry, sweaty, dirty, with torn clothes and scraped arms, I met an old lady. Who looked at me, smiled and said: "Congratulations!" I was really puzzled, I didn't recognize her and I didn't imagine I looked like someone you should congratulate on anything... "On your graduation!" She said. I thanked her, but was still very puzzled. Had to ask her if I knew her, or, if not, how she knew I was graduating, She explained: "The wine, and the stress! What else could it mean in your age?".Lesson: Never underestimate the powers of deduction of little old ladies!!love/Reb