The Chainsaw Bandit

Everybody knows that cities are weird. For some reason they think that small towns ought to be normal. Actually, I say you get a reverse effect: there's so few people to watch, the weirdness practically leaps off the landscape.

Case in point: Someone broke into our wood shop.

There's a box-fan built into the back wall, and first they pulled that out hoping to climb in through the hole, but Daddy had piled furniture behind it and they couldn't get through. So they broke a window. Most of what's in there is too big to steal quietly -- the four-wheeler, the lawn mower, my dollhouse in a crate the size of a baby hippo. It's where Daddy stores extension cords and tarps and hoses. Oh, and his chainsaw. So that's what they took.

We called the police and a deputy from the sheriff's office came out. Daddy already knew him, which I have come to accept as a matter of course with Daddy: if the person holds an official position locally, Daddy knows them. Phillip stopped by to drop something off and the deputy knew him too (Phillip is rather like Daddy in this respect). Anyway, we explain what happened, figuring the best we can do is fill out a report and get the insurance company to reimburse us, when the deputy sighs and says, "I know who took it."

Wha--?

Before you get your hopes up, there's no happily-ever-after in which Daddy gets his chainsaw back. But it turns out there is this old hermit who lives out in the woods. The police can't find him because he keeps moving, but he makes the rounds with his big backpack and he steals... chainsaws. Sometimes other stuff too, but mostly chainsaws. I'm not kidding.

I think we should rig one of those Indian traps with the tree bent down and the rope loop hidden under some leaves. We'll just have to wait until Daddy gets a new saw so that we can use it as bait...

Oh, and on the flip side of the local crime life is the local law-enforcement life: the reason Phillip knows the deputy is because the police department (and friends) periodically drills with firearms by staging mock-battles. They roam up and down main street shooting eachother with air-soft guns.

Tell me they let you do that in Chicago!