You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Laying an ass whooping on a burglar stealing your stuff.
Nobody wants to come face to face with a bandit. Nobody wants to go one on one with danger. But if you have to go mano a mano with an imbecilic splash of manure, why not come out on top? Why not bust the bad guy in the chops; let him know that crime does not pay.
I spoke with a man recently who did just that.
DATELINE: COLUMBIA, Tennessee
The 51 year old grandfather was tall and probably 215 pounds. Though balding, he was rock solid, like he just came from the old linebackers home.
He tells me in a Michigan banter that he had just come home and found a strange car parked in his garage. Imagine that – a bad guy with the audacity to park HIS car in YOUR garage while HE steals YOUR stuff.
So suddenly the homeowner is face to face with a young tattooed thug who is jacking everything in the guy’s house.
Backed into a corner, the burglar tried one last lie.
“Oh I’m thinking of buying your house.”
“What?” the homeowner stammered.
That’s your play? I’m buying your house? Nice try underbelly.
Knowing his game is bad like a Tiger Woods first date, the scum bag says to the homeowner; “I’m sorry. I’ll give you your stuff back.”
Too late. The homeowner is pissed. His adrenaline is pumping like a steam engine at Dollywood.
It’s GO time for the home owner who begins calling on his high school days as a wrestler and all around bad ass.
And suddenly a quiet Sunday afternoon of thievery turns into a bloody battle between young and old, good versus evil, haves and have nots.
The burglar reportedly hopped in his get-a-way car and the home owner dove through the window to stop him.
In the “catching the burglar handbook”, this is where it says, let the douche go and call 911. Not the Michigan grandpa.
This homeowner is dedicated to making a citizens arrest like Paris Hilton is dedicated to Valet Parking.
Suddenly both men latch onto the wheel, while exchanging choice language and left hooks.
The car spins in the wet grass and wedges against a tree. It must have looked like two rhinoceros’ humping in the everglades.
Mud and grass are flying. Noise is tearing through the calm like a Harley with long pipes. What a scene.
The homeowner says he was wailing on the young man’s cranium trying to extract molars while the car was a tilt-a-whirl of crazy.
Sporting a dark shiner under his eye and cuts above his nose, the burglar will later tell me from jail that he offered to leave peacefully but the homeowner would have none of it.
“I told him I’d give him back his stuff,” the young criminal says quietly.
Well how inconsiderate of the homeowner, don’t you think. He comes home to find a hooligan stealing his grandson’s birthday gifts. Surprisingly he doesn’t want to just let you walk away. Go figure.
The homeowner is demonstrative and shows me how he slammed the 25 year old burglar in the car door, not once, not twice, but perhaps a dozen times. He shadow boxes the lens of my camera, pulling back his ham sized fists just short of making contact.
For a 51 year old guy, he’s got a little Hit Man Hearns in him.
He tells me how the thief with the swollen and bloody face runs like a beaten dog through the woods.
On the other side of the tree line, the miscreant finds a dump truck. He needs a get a way vehicle and this one can carry 100 tons of dirt.
That’s when the bad guy remembers; “Hey I don’t know how to drive a stick shift”
And a dump truck has a lot of gears to shift.
GRRRRRRRRZERCRACK
That’s the sound of the drive train of the dump truck screaming for help.
Detectives put the burglary and the dump truck case together quickly and arrest the swollen faced thug who doesn’t deny any of it.
In a jail house interview, the thief tells me that he has a problem. Not a drinking problem. Not a drug problem. A stealing problem.
He tells me that he is sorry and he wants to turn his life around.
I think the burglar is one part sincere, and one part con man. His story is pretty much the same as the homeowner, so I feel like he’s at least telling me his version of the truth.
When asked if he was afraid the thug might be packing, the home owner says, it happened too fast. He says he lost it when he saw his grandson’s birthday presents in the back of the thief’s car.
The homeowner tells me the thief got what he deserved.
The bad guy says he is sorry for the inconvenience he caused the homeowner.
It’s a slice of Dirty Harry Americana where sometimes might makes right and justice does carry a good right hook.
And that is crazy.™