The Joys of Urban Life, Part 36

If you are a regular reader of The Haggis you will perhaps already know about my unofficial list of joys of living in DC. Yes, they include crazy-easy access to smithsonians, fun daily sightings of completely-inside-the-beltway personages like Vernon Jordan, Morton Kondracke, Senator Alan Simpson, and Carville. All to the good for a political junkie like myself. As a regular reader you will also remember the less-salutary joys of living in DC, which include:

1. Weird dude jerkin' it on a park bench in broad daylight.
2. "Roving horticultural experts" who knock on your door at 10pm wanting to come in and talk to you about any yard work they might be able to do for you.
3. Uber-aggressive squirrels whose behavior turns the kiddie park into their very own vermin-style Escape From New York; and I ain't no Snake Pliskin.
4. Clueless tourists who seem DETERMINED by their idiotic behavior to be killed by either an oncoming car, a metro train or the secret service.

Well folks, we can now add the following new joy to this ever-growing list:

5. People who steal your trash cans.

Yep. My trash cans were stolen. Put them out the night before, woke up to find my trash bags on the ground and my bins gone. At least one other neighbor awoke to the same situation, all of which begs the following three questions:

A. Who in the hell steals TRASH CANS?!!
B. How much crack does a trash can get you nowadays anyway?
C. Who do you call when your trash cans are stolen? The police? "Yes officer, stolen. Gone. Let's see, it was green with "District of Columbia" printed on the side. Yeah. Yep. Just like the one outside the station house. What are the odds of finding mine?"

So now I have to call and request new ones, or worse, go and pay for my own, only to put them out again and risk their theft. My only solution is to follow the lead of those people who used to put little notes to potential thieves on their cars like, "radio is broken" or "radio will not work if removed from console." I always considered it a sign of the coming apocalypse that people were leaving notes for criminals, but now I think it's just good old fashioned common sense, as are those little signs that say "Protected by ADT" outside homes, just in case a thief is wondering if you're alarmed or not.

To that end, I've decided to put a Lojack sticker on my new trash cans. Oh--and just to be extra safe--engrave and trace in black permanent ink: "PROPERTY OF MAN WITH SMALL PENIS."

That oughta do it.