CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES

     Living in a large city like L. A. you come to expect a dollop of criminal activity.  I had a car, the same car, stolen twice.  Husband was mugged on the subway.  Living skid-row adjacent Husband and I were privy to lots of shenanigans.  Husband's computer was stolen from our living room while he was out on a ten minute errand. 

No Shortage of Police

 One morning at around six am, I glanced out our window to see an impressive act of multi-tasking in the parking lot below; a gentleman with a prostitute and a crack pipe; using both simultaneously.  Police cars raced down our street frequently and helicopters hovered overhead. Houses have alarms and bars.  Some people have guns tucked away under their beds.

     I expected no crime out here in the country.  Certainly not in our immediate area with its population of about 705, drawn from three little villages.  Our village has no shop, so there's nothing to hold up.  There's no cash machine, so there's no swiveling head, hunched-shouldered protecting of pin numbers.  Some people here don't even lock their doors.  Deluded... all of them. 

     We purchase our eggs from a stand by a house in plain view of chickens pecking contentedly in rich soil across the road.  We took our half dozen, and went to drop our one pound twenty in the ceramic bowl that acts as the 'till', instead we found a note.  Our money dish has been stolen, it said, please deposit your payment directly into our mailbox.  

Scene of the Crime

Husband and I looked at each other aghast.  Theft!  Here? We couldn't believe it.  We felt violated.  We put our money into the mail slot and hurried home through the fields, crestfallen.

     Suddenly our verdant outpost was not the pristine paradise I believed it to be.  A by-product of urban dwelling is a vague alertness to potential danger, a little inner antenna that prevents total relaxation.  I'd released that defense mechanism here.  One swiped money dish and I was back on high alert.  

Droves of Danger

     In my mind, ramblers on otherwise empty lanes and droves became potential muggers.  It didn't matter that they were pensioners dragged along by corgis.  A non-descript windowless van became the transport for kidnappers, though who would want to kidnap us and why is a mystery. 

     "Maybe we need a guard dog," I suggest to Husband, "We could borrow our friend's vicious hound, Beastly."

Beastly and Bits of Burgler

Kidnappers?  No, it's just 
the neighbours.

     Out of our window we see several structures.  One is an old farmhouse, another is a 17th century barn turned spiritual center (remember, we're in the Vale of Avalon).  There is a light on in the farmhouse every single night.  It is as reliable as the sunrise.  Then one night, there was only darkness.  Odd, I think.  A second night.  No light. On the third day I call Husband to the window.  "Look!" I point at the police car parked in front of the house.  "He's been murdered," I announce, looking solemnly across the field.  Fourth day the light returns and I have to focus my paranoia elsewhere.

     I shake my head at the foolishness of unlocked bikes leaned against a fence by the cricket field, left with the expectation they'll still be there when the school bus dislodges children at the end of the day.  In a nearby village a woman bakes cakes and puts them in a giant red and white polka-dotted cupboard.  Customers pick a treat, and drop coins in a plastic container.  "You'd have thought she knew better," I say to Husband, recalling the egg dish caper.  The sound of kids playing up by the Hood Monument on a sunny Sunday become vandals screaming.  

The Cakehole

Trouble at the Hood? No, Just Husband.

     









     
     We find dog poop outside our front gate.  "That was no accident," I search our hedge-lined country lane for the culprit.  I become obsessive about locking the door.  Two boys stand on the road trying to cajole Penny the Peahen down the drive to the gate.  I go out, hands on hips, a warning to these pint-sized Pea-nappers. "You've got to be vigilant," I tell Husband,   "You're crackers," Husband says. 

     We're in town one day picking up provisions and I spot it... my vindication.  I grab a copy of the Central Somerset Gazette from a nearby stack.  "Ha!" I announce to Husband.  "What?"  Husband sighs. I point to an article.  "See... " I  hold it up for him to read. A headline states in bold letters; THIEF HID HOT FOOD DOWN PANTS.  

Hot Pasty

 http://www.centralsomersetgazette.co.uk/Glastonbury-shoplifter-caught-stuffing-hot-food/story-20829060-detail/story.html

     Seems a drunk twenty-five year old staggered into a grocery store, and stole oven fresh piping hot pasties and sausage rolls, then stuffed them down his trousers for safe keeping.  He might have gotten away with it, but two bottles of wine he stuffed down there to accompany his meal smashed on the ground.  Two weeks later the same felon was caught putting a pair of bolt croppers down his pants; surely even a drunk man must realize the potentially life-altering repercussions of this act.  

"See, it's a crime wave," I tell Husband.

"Darling, I think you're losing the plot," Husband says.