Fenced

So what do you do when you steal something you don't need?

When you steal food, it could be because you or someone you feel responsible for is hungry.

When you steal a coat it could possibly be because you are cold.

So when you steal something you don't need? Something you cant use?

What do you do?

The hardest thing about stealing odds and ends is turning them into money.

 I would guess.

So what do the maggots who steal things do?

In ye olde days they would go to a "fence"

Someone who specilised in moving stolen goods along. Finding buyers for them. The fence was well known in the community of criminals. He was the go-to guy.

Lets say (for example) that I stole a Gold Chamber pot.

Its worth a LOT of florins, but it has the family crest of the former owners boldly emblazoned on the bottom.

So I would take it to the fence.

He would ascertain its value, and offer me much less.

Say, knowing that he could sell the gold to a reputable goldsmith for 600 florins, he would offer me 60.

We would haggle, and in the end I would walk away happy with the 50 florins clinking in my pocket.

The fence would then approach his friend the goldsmith, the man who asks no questions, and offer the poo-pot to him.

The goldsmith, knowing that he could easily convert this polished toilet into 2000 florins worth of jewelry offers the fence 400 florins.

They haggle, and in the end the fence walks home happy with the 750 florins jingling happily in his money pouch.

Twenty days later, Jewelry done, A man and His wife come into the shop. 

She is depressed because recently her fathers family crested chamber pot was stolen and insurance (not being invented yet) obviously refused to cover it.

So the husband, being a wise man, takes his wife to the local goldsmith. An upstanding member of the community, well known to all. Once there he buys her three beautiful pieces of gold jewelry purchased at the "friend" price of 2200 florins.

Little does she know, that 20 days previously she was pooping in the pot she now wears happily around her neck.

Its a win win.

Right?

In a word, no.

There is one really really unhappy party. Party being a word I am using to describe an entity, or group of people rather then where you go to hit pinatas.

This unhappy Party is, of course, the government.

Especially when the goldsmith is elected Mayor.

Knowing full well where the poo-pots were originating from he invites his friend the fence over to dinner.

Over the clams he mentions offhand that he wants a piece of the action.

After choking on his clam, the fence asks the Mayor if he has gone soft in the head.

The Mayor smiles and twirls his Grotesque mustache. Which is really gross cause its covered in clam juice.

This is actually a sign for the local watch to come in.

6 burly chaps with clubs that work for the Mayor. 

They stand behind the fence and make growly sounds and hit their clubs against their meaty palms.

All is clear.

So the fence and The Mayor haggle. In the end it is decided that the fence only has to pay the Mayor a small percentage of everything he sells. 6.5 percent to be precise.

As the fence leaves, nervously stepping wide of the brute squad the mayor, slurping down a few more clams calls out "HEY! we will just call it a sales tax" his grotesque mustache bobs obscenely as he laughs.

So everyone is happy.

The thief gets to steal, the fence gets to fence and the Government gets to make a little on the side.

The Mayor laughs. 

He collects taxes from the people who pay the Mayor to protect them from the thieves who steal from the people, the theives sell it to the fence who sells the stuff to other normal people and some criminal types at a higher markup to cover the sales tax which he pays to the mayor to protect the fence from the brute squad who protect the Mayor from the criminal types and other normal people who could perhaps threaten his position, The Mayor pays the brute squad with the money he gets from the fence to protect the people.

Make perfect sense.

Good thing it is all a fantasy.
Do I need to spell it out?
Plain English?
Okey Dokey.
Pawn Shops are fences. They can buy "loan" on anything of value. The person selling the object does not have to prove that they own it. Possession is enough for the LAW and the Pawnshop.
They pay "loan" very little compared to the real value.
The Police force is funded primarily on taxes, in my town, the Majority of which is sales Tax. The Police are essentially paid by the pawn shops. (greatly simplified, I realize)
Now lets say you are an enterprising active property owner, a payer of taxes and a (fairly) good citizen. All your stuff gets stolen.
You go to the Police, they tell you that their hands are tied.
So, you venture forth and find your stuff, some of it, at a local pawn shop.
You know its yours cause it has your name written on it.
So in triumph you call the police, who arrive at the Pawnshop.
JUSTICE!
Well, no.
You see. According to the law, since the pawnshop has now paid for your stuff, they own it. You now have to "prove" that it is yours.
Receipts and serial numbers are good. Pictures of you holding said objects will work in a pinch.
Your name being on it? Not good enough. Pictures of you and your family on the film in the camera and on the tapes? Not good enough.
So then you go to a city council meeting and yell at the Mayor.
Who then sends the brute squad round about your house to remind you that if you do ANYTHING wrong at all. They will arrest you.
Fantasy.

Or is it?

Locals

It was 3am, 30 degrees and we were 230 miles from home.
On our motorcycles.
In Panguitch UT. Which for those of you not familiar with the bass ackward state of Deseret, is nowhere.
Adventures are rarely fun when you are in the middle of one. It's a well known fact among adventurers around the world. They are usually miserable.
We were on a self imposed deadline to get home.
Not completely self imposed, we both, The Shane and I, had to be at work in a few hours.
We had already been on the road for ten hours.
It was cold. We had planned this trip in the middle of winter, trusting in the groundhog and past experience to give us good weather.
That false furry faker.
We were chased out of Utah two days before in a snowstorm.

We were headed home now, we had passed the uncontrollable shivering stage and were now just numb.
Full body numbness is not recommended.
I am positive the surgeon general warns against it.
We would stop for gas and try and get warm, leather gets very stiff in the cold. It holds its shape remarkably well. Walking in to a truck stop at midnight with your arms held stiff straight out in front of you is more than slightly embarrassing.
Trust me.
Sliding into Panguitch, the ass end of no-place special, was a relief. More so was the open sign on a gas station. Its times like these that you appreciate the simple things in life. Fluorescent light, heaters, Hot chocolate, heaters, bathrooms with heat. Heaters.
We woke up the vigilant owner of the store clattering inside in a frozen blast of air. She seemed less then pleased to see us. At her advanced age I was betting she thought she had seen everything the world and the road could throw at her. Until now. She watched us with glazed eyes. It seemed like she was having a bit of trouble believing we were real.
In retrospect, a six foot tall Mexican and a long haired white(ish) guy wearing three cows worth of black leather between them, could be a little alarming.
Shane had to go and make everything stereotypical by buying a Mexican horse blanket. Seriously.

Watch the YouTube video here.

He wrapped it around himself under his jacket and zipped up.
I laughed so hard my frozen face cracked in three places.
We were headed out the door when the antique jerked awake.
Fully. Bright rheumy eyes looked at us and then swung to our bikes.
I wish I could somehow allow you to hear her, the southern Utah accent is a cultural anomaly, a mystery. My personal theory as to its origin is simple. When you have six (or more) mothers all trying to teach you how to speak, each with a different accent, you can get a bit confused.
Hence, the south Utah trawl. (you know, Twang-Drawl)
Enough of that.
The suddenly wide awake oldster was putting in her teeth. As soon as they were in and she had test clacked them together a few times she croaked at us....
"You boys are on those motorcycles?"
Nods
"You Boys headed out?"
Nods
"You boys are crazy!"
Shrugs and nods
"Headed to Salt Lake?"
I sat back down. She obviously thought she needed to talk. I shut my brain down and just watched the following exchange.
Shane (The Six Foot Mexican) "Yes, we are headed up over the pass to get back on i-15 then to Salt Lake"
"uhhhhhuhhhhhuhhhhhhhuuuu"
Shane(TSFTM) "Excuse me?"
"Oh, you boys need to watch out for the elk at mile marker 13"
TSFTM "The Elk?"
"Oh yeeeah, the elk  all winter at mile marker 13, right at the top of the pass"
TSFTM "Really?"
I was sitting there listening to this, incredulous. What is it with these people? Locals. They think that just because they live in area they can make oracular pronouncements about a herd, a large heard of very large animals.  A foretelling of where a herd of Very large, VERY mobile animals are going to be at any given time?  Elk are not cows, they are not Sheep, they are free range wild animals. I have Hunted Elk my entire life and the one thing I have learned in 27 years of chasing the damn things is that they are NEVER where you think or expect them to be.
Never ever.
This ol local had worn out the three brain cells I had that were not frozen.
I walked out the door, pulling TSFTM after me. As the door swung shut she warbled "mile marker 13"
Can you believe this shit? I am a weird magnet, but put me and Shane together and suddenly Idiots the world over are falling over themselves to talk at us.
Gods very own comedy team.
We headed out. Frozen solid within 2 miles.
Up and up we went, on a road that would have been fun.
In the day time.
At midsummer.
At 3:30 am and -30 windchill. Just starting to snow. On motorcycles.
Not fun.
The concentration required to ride a motorcycle increases for everything you add to a normal road. Sadly, I was noticing that my concentration was decreasing the colder I got.
Conundrum.
Headlights on bright only light up the road, leaving the sides of the world more of a hint then anything else. Shapes move in the corner of your vision. After ten hours in the saddle your brain gets used to it.
Not really.
I could see these shapes now. Nearing the top of the pass. Snow falling, swirling in visions of the future across the road. Smoke over water. Dreamlike.Cold becomes comfort, the roar of the engine fades into the distance and the road merges up ahead with infinity.
Oh shit!
I jerked my head up, shook it and slowed down. Shane (TSFTM) took the lead and I followed his brake-light.
Mile marker thirteen.
Here it is.
Exactly at the marker.
Exactly.

An Elk steps out into the road. Steam shooting from nostrils that seemed twenty feet high.
Shane dodged.
We rode on.
I looked back, hundreds of elk, the shapes on the edge of the world.
Elk.
Exactly at mile marker 13.
I hate locals.

Methadventures

A sordid confession blog.

I was young(er) and still feeling bulletproof.

Having just borrowed a house from the bank for a thirty year loan I was feeling like a responsible adultish sort of person.

Until I met the neighbor.

His name was Steve.

He had graduated from painting houses to dealing in a much more lucrative market.

The manufacture and sale of Meth.

He also taught Steve-kun-do.

The first time we met he told me how Bruce Lee himself peed himself in fear when faced with the mighty steve in battle mode.

Chuck Norris? Not a challenge for the Steve.

He had really bad skin.

I learned later that when you cook chemicals without the proper protective gear you can get residue buildup in your pores. It creates a sort of "plastic pimple" on exposed skin.

Nasty.

I like to keep to myself, let others leave me alone and I leave them alone.

Sort of.

It was the traffic that did me in.

A constant 24-7 flow of cars, foot traffic, vagrants and bicyclists would come to his kitchen window and trade grubby money for little plastic packets.

And the noise. Loud music, Loud cars, Mowing his lawn at 2am. Always the noise.

So I phoned the gendarmes.

This is when we discovered the boundary dispute. 

We lived exactly on the border between M-city and S-city.

Neither of them wanted to come out, so they sent H-county cars.

Who didn't want to deal with it.

So they left.

And the traffic continued. Day and night. 

So I asked him to stop.

Very nicely.

I even politely kicked on the front door, rather than knocking on the kitchen window.

I may have kicked a little harder then I meant to.

He called the cops on me.

Who showed up and informed me, whilst the traffic never abated, that since there was no "proof" of my erstwhile neighbor dealing drugs that there was nothing they could do.

Oh, and if you bother the Steve again, you get a ticket.

So I pondered.

Shoot him? Torch his house?Accidentally run over him? Squish him?

options and options.

I was at a loss.

So I called about the noise. Every night.

He started getting tickets. Warnings. He would cast me dark looks.

I am afraid I was not subtle.

Standing in front of steves house with a cell phone at 1am calling the cops.

He received a FINAL warning.

It only took a month.

Jail for noise violation if he had one more call.

So he got quiet.

Really quiet.

Damn it all.

The problem was beginning to look insurmountable.

It was solved, miraculously, by the sweet Dutch lady down the road.

She called Protective Services.

Apparently, the Steve had a six year old child in the house.

So, they came, they saw, they took the kid. The policia took the Steve and I figured all was well.

Nope.

The Steve had a Lawyer.

A really good one.

He was out and cooking again in less than 24 hours.

But he got smarter.

He moved into his garage/karate studio in the back yard.

He rented the house to these nice young men.

College age.

Quiet. Polite. Respectful.

Best neighbors we ever had.

The traffic continued to some extent, but since it was going into the backyard and off the street.

Well, live and let live.

Until 3am one morning when the SWAT team raided the house, shot one of the nice young men and let the dog use the other one as a chew toy.

They were cooking for steve.

He escaped. In the confusion and amidst the growling and screaming the steve got away.

At 4am I was out talking to the coppers.

What could I do?

Could I get steve evicted?

Well.

In a word. No.

He owned the house.

They really didn't have much on him.

And he had a really good Lawyer.

So.

The next day, under the cover of a bright noon day sun.

I took his electric meter. I turned off the water and the gas and put padlocks on them.

I took a hammer drill and three inch screws and fastened every single door, window and opening shut.

Then I stripped all the screws.

That night steve tried to break into his own house.

I let him play for about an hour. Banging and Cursing and generally making a lot of noise.

Until he had a fine froth of rage going.

Then I called the cops.

Who arrived just in time to see steve, in a meth induced frenzy of stupidity, trying to beat his own front door in with a decorative rock.

he was making a lot of noise.

They say confession is good for the soul.

I say, only after the statue of limitations is up.

Don't mess with us

evil-doers beware

Blogshit

People will write about anything.
I went on a tour of blogland these past few days to see what the vast army of maladjusted humans with a desire to express themselves are writing about.
Holy salted snails.
The absolute volume of total shit out there is impressive.
After six hours of reading I had to go outside and throw my pants, boots and socks away.
Wading through waist deep poop can do that.
I found blogs for and about everything.
Dealing with snails in your garden. 78 blogs over three years of NOTHING but dealing with snails.
Growing Worms in your kitchen.
Growing Pot in life size Plastic Nativity Scene Characters. (very informative)
Exploring the inner working of a self designed AI.
Anime fetish blogs.

Jesus. Lots and Lots of Blogs about Jesus and scriptures and heaven and oh my, they even type with southern accents. I get the feeling that most of them read on about a 3rd grade level if at all.
Distressing.
Depressing blogs.

Statistically speaking I would venture to say that 90% of blogs are depressing, or about depression, or anti-psychotics and/or both.
Lots of Photo blogs. Most of those I actually really enjoyed.
Much over-use of the word "adventure" in blog titles.
If everyone with a blog titled adventure of....... Is actually having any sort of adventure.
Well, they would write a lot more about cool things. Instead they make one or three entries about their plans, their goals and their dreams and then.
I guess real life catches up and smacks them in the head.
Either that or thousands of people die every day on the first step to their grand adventure.
Sex blogs.
The odd thing about sex blogs. Actually, pretty much everything about all blogs is odd so to single out sex blogs is unfair.
However.
Most of the Sex blogs seem to be written by people who are not having any.
The food blogs.
I hate the food blogs.
As if having cooking shows on all day at the gym was not bad enough.

There are billions of blathering bloggers besieged by baked, boiled, burnt and braised items. Incidentally, that is a picture of butter beans. Thematic.
I hate food blogs.

Cat blogs.
I struggled with this, because I too have a cat. I have written about him on my blog. This is NOT my cat. My cat is a kick-ass raging cool furface named jack that does not chew on cacti.

Nor do I  have 5 years of  1820 individual entries about a cat. One cat. Neither do I have 3000 followers whom are also obsessed with said feline.
One blog, one cat, 1820 entries over five years and over 3000 followers.
There are some blogs out there that are so wonderfully written, so magnificently expresses and so emotionally rewarding to read that it makes swilling through the miasma of blogocean worth it.
Wear old clothes.

Progeny

I have two small people that live in the same house as me.
They may or may not be my children.
After the older of the two, #1, brought home a 4.0 report card I begun to question her parentage.
At her age I had discovered that if you were bored at school, you could just leave. Nonchalantly stroll out the front door and meander home.
Grades? I had a vague idea about them, but nothing really penetrated.
I don't think truancy is a genetic trait. But it should be.
She even seems to like teachers, she treats them and other students with kindness and respect.
I am amazed by her. She is intelligent, Graceful, Poised and Beautiful.
Obviously taking after her Mom.
She is also very verbally quick. She can talk circles around me. The witty comeback, the repartee, come naturally to her.
I have to plan conversations in advance to avoid sounding like an idiot. Witty? Not I said the tom.
The younger of the two, #2, is an alien.
She has silver eyes.
Feathers grow from her head.
She plays ping pong with a paddle in each hand.
She looks just like her mom, but she lives on a different plane of existence.
These two, the numbers, 1 and 2, get along as sisters do.
They seem to tolerate me.
I exasperate them both. #1 is already at the point in her homework where I can only sit by and watch helplessly as she storms through paper after paper with the careless abandon of ease. #2 never asks me for help, she asks #1 or waits for the Mom.
She knows that I am good for fun and laughs but not for math.
It is a very well known fact in our house that Dad skipped a Grade.(3rd)
It is understood that the foundation for success in school was imparted to all the other students in the grade that dad missed.
My education is lacking.
They are much smarter than I.
I watch them both and marvel at their uniqueness. The way they handle things.
I remember their whole lives spread out in a ribbon wreath in front of my eyes.
Everything.
I am very grateful that they allow me to live with them. That they put up with my oddness with a smile. They kiss me goodnight before they sleep and I can feel the brush of their lips on my cheeks all night.
I was going to write a very funny story about daycare.
Another time.
Right now I am just going to sit and think of these little sprites.
Because whoever made them, aliens or mailman or me.
Did a pretty damn good job.

Seriously? The triumphant conclusion

I have been around some really dim humans in my life.
The guy who believed satellites stayed in orbit by means of a really really long electrical cord, the guy who insisted Gold was worth more than platinum, the guy who told me that bending an electrical cord would kink the current and stop it from getting through, the guy who thought I was kidding about breaking his clavicle.
On and on.
This lady though.
She wins.
I was actually beginning to suspect that she must have either had some sort of traumatic brain injury or that her Mother and Father were siblings.
She was everywhere, her shrill voice grating and permeating every available acoustic space to be found.
If I tried to talk or answer questions she was there instantly.
Quicker then instantly.
I would feel a whoosh of displaced air and her voice would screech into existence directly into my neural cortex.
"LOOK!"
Everything she said was preceded by this.
"LOOK!" 
And she would point.
The kids were actively hiding from her. Her son had developed a nervous tic at the corner of his right eye and was constantly mumbling to himself. One of the staff, bless her sweet little soul, was trying to distract the moron with shiny things and baubles.
Nothing worked.
She destroyed any and all intellectual growth.
With magnificent pronouncements such as.....

"LOOK! THOSE ARE THE SHOES JESUS WORE!"
at a footwear display.

"LOOK! THIS GUY INVENTED LIGHT AND THE TELEPHONE!"
to a famous picture of Einstein.

"LOOK! RNA! YOU ARE ALL MADE OF LITTLE TINY STRINGS OF RNA!"
to a model of the DNA helix

"LOOK! IF YOU ALL JUMP HARD ENOUGH YOU CAN MAKE THAT LITTLE NEEDLE MOVE!"
At a working seismograph. To her credit she did try.
She was actually quiet for a space after that, her failed attempt to create any sort of Richter measurement by jumping up and down for ten minutes saddened her.

"LOOK! A GIANT BEAR! AND THEY PUT HIS HANDS ON WRONG!"

Its a Giant Sloth. When one of the children pointed out the sign that said "giant ground sloth" attached to the skeleton she guffawed, then screeched.

"LOOK! THE DUMMIES PUT THE WRONG SIGN ON THE GIANT BEAR!"

That kind of self confidence always astounds me. When the whole world is wrong. Don't misunderstand, sometimes the whole world is wrong. But this Lady? The momentous ego was eclipsing the sun and all the other planets. Speaking of which.

"LOOK! PLUTO AIN'T A PLANET NO MORE CAUSE THE DEATH STAR DONE BLOWED IT UP!"

I cant make this shit up. I started laughing. Hard. The hilarity in that and the ridiculousness of this bat-shit human all caught up with me at once and I couldn't stop. I sat down next to the earth model ant farm and laughed until tears were streaming down my face.

She sat down next to me. Used her humongous backpack to push the two kids sitting behind me right off the bench. Leaned in close to me and whisper screeched in my ear.

"look, they put you with these kids to be an example, behave like an adult"

Have you ever heard a hyena choke? Me neither. But I am positive I sounded just like one. I laughed so hard I hurt myself. I just got up and walked away still laughing. Her face got redder and redder until it was purplish. I couldn't talk, I could barely breathe. The kids just stared. 

She was apoplectic. 

Splendid.

And wonder of wonders. She was quiet. All through the interactive displays, through the botany room, even the Archaeology area. Blissful silence.

Then.

The ultimate.

We walked under the giant skeleton of some long necked Dinosaur. Forty some feet above our heads.

Her son and I, standing quietly under it. He is busy  telling me all about it. One of those kids that knows all the names of all the dinos. Obviously his favorite subject. He is just warming up and telling me about its diet and possible coloration when the whoosh of idioport startles us.

"LOOK! ITS A GIANT LONG NECKED TYRANNOSAURUS REX"

Her son, in a very small voice "mother, I think that may be a Barosaurus  "

She slaps her kid on the back. Laughing at how cute he is. They are both Alternating looking up at the skeleton and at me.

"LOOK! THESE KIDS, SO CUTE AT THIS AGE, THINK THEY KNOW EVERYTHING!"

and in a whisper screech stage whisper to me

"Its a good thing we get smarter as we get older, otherwise they would believe all sorts of weird stuff"

She walked off then. Leaving me standing with her son.

I said nothing.

What do you say? What could I have said?

The boy looked up at me. Smiled a little and said.

"I really think that I might be adopted"

Seriously? Part 2

Wild Indians? As opposed to what? The tame domesticated Indians? The incorrigible ones?
The nine eight year old's were all looking at me, I was looking at them, blinking. Behind me the super educated and backpacked partner was screeching about "LOOK! wild Indians invented baby backpacks, they must have almost been as smart as people!"

An instance in which I am very glad I am not human.
One of the wee humans was holding the bridge of his nose. Eyes closed as if some great misfortune had assailed him, he seemed to be muttering.
Concerned, I knelt down next to him and asked if he was OK?
"I begged her not to come, and she promised me she would be quiet"
Aha! Progeny.
I couldn't really say anything comforting.  So I tried to distract him by asking him what his favorite thing was so far. He took me over to a nearby display case and showed me a beautiful beaded quiver. Full of arrows.
He was reading the placard out loud to me, explaining why it was his favorite. Obviously a city boy, he asked me what an "Elk" was? After all, it says that its made of Elk hide?
Before I could even utter a syllable I was mauled, manhandled, bowled over. By a short backpack wearing dwarf howling "LOOK! Don't be silly! LOOK! Everyone knows that "ELK" is just Indian for "buffalo leather!"
Um.
Yeah.
I left the poor lad there. Holding the bridge of his nose, slightly shaking his head. His biological donor drawling on and on about words and various meanings in other languages.
The other smallettes I could enjoy. Watching them flit and fly about. Pointing and exclaiming and reading about things. Whenever questioned I pointed out the placard, let them read it to me.
Then we came to the dead things.

The male version of the wee children seemed to be unaffected by the cases of furry remains, quickly moving on to the interactive human skull display. The female half, of which there were four, seemed a bit put out. Standing in a flock, twittering to each other and pointing at the fuzzies.
I knelt down next to my child and waited.
They buzzed with each other for a moment and than their erstwhile spokesperson turned to me. "Are these real?'
yes.
"Are they all real?"
yes
"Are they really dead?"
y--------
That's when the imbecilic dwarf bounced my head off of the display case. Bonk.
"LOOK! OF COURSE THEY ARE NOT REALLY DEAD! THEY JUST SHAVE THEIR FUR OFF AND MAKE IT LOOK REAL, LIKE A SHEEP"
Huh?