One man's bagpipes are a pawn broker's dream

Our neighborhood has experienced a rash of burglaries. The list of stolen items includes flat screen TVs, bicycles, fountains, lawnmowers, computers, DVD players, and perhaps the oddest on the list, bagpipes.

"Please help recover my prized possession. Authentic Scottish bagpipes..." an announcement reads, stapled to every telephone pole for blocks and blocks.

I was walking with the neighbor when we spotted the computer generated sign complete with an intricate drawing of the bagpipes (apparently no photo exists of the beloved). My neighbor doubled over in laughter. "Why would anyone steal bagpipes?" she guffawed. And we kept walking and wandering, the signs like flags following our path.

We have been fortunate to have avoided the pillage of these brazen burglars. "They broke a side window," explained one neighbor, "and then carted everything out the front door and into a waiting van...in the middle of the day!"

These neighbors were almost next door, one fence away. They have two dogs who bark constantly and throw themselves at the fence in the backyard every time we walk by. But the dogs were to no avail. Locked in the backyard, they no doubt threw themselves at the sliding glass door with the same vicious verve they display to the innocent passersby, but what threat is that to the kid ripping your TV off the wall? So much for guard dogs.

We leave our dog inside when we go, but it doesn't make me feel any safer. If they are bold enough to break into the house on the corner during the day, what would they do to our dog if they confronted him in the middle of a burglary? I have no doubt that he would bark aggressively and posture menacingly, but would he bite them? Would they attack him?

Everyone in the neighborhood is trying to figure out who is responsible for the recent increase of thefts. The recent robbery was apparently committed by three teenagers (someone saw them, but didn't think anything of it -- three kids carrying a flat screen TV into a van) -- but did remember their descriptions later when interviewed by the police.

Others suspect the teenagers at the end of the block. They are home now, though there are times in the year when they are never home. We suspect they are in jail and once released, they come live with their tired mother and the burglaries increase.

One neighbor reported blue painter's tape outside on his walkway, "as if I'd been tagged," he said, but no one else has noticed such a mark before they were robbed.

Our mail carrier suspects the creepy looking older man she sees driving around the neighborhood. "He's in a different car every week," she tells me one day. "And I always see him emptying stuff out of the back of one vehicle or another with teenagers and prostitutes there to help."

"You should call the police," I tell her.

"Yeah, right. I'm a sitting target. They see me see them, day in and day out. Don't you think they'll know who called?"

Good point. "Call me," I suggest, "And I'll call the police."

She agrees, but has never done so. I don't blame her. I've seen the slimy guy and his cadre of miscreants and they scare me, too. And what do you tell the police? "Hey, there's this guy with a bunch of kids unloading stuff from a car, a van, a truck. He looks suspicious." We can't even get the police to come by when there's an even more substantial threat in the neighborhood. "Yes," we say, "He's got a gun."

"Are you sure it's a gun and not fireworks?" the dispatcher will ask.

My god!

Actually, I should be nicer. The police have upped their presence and have responded in a more timely fashion, but many of them still have the attitude "if you choose to live in this neighborhood..." and look at us with a bit of sympathy, but not too much.

"I called the local pawn shop," one neighbor reported, "And the thief was at the counter trying to sell my TV! Imagine that!" She called the police, but the suspect was long-gone by then, nervous that the pawn broker was stalling a bit too long.

On our block, everyone's keeping an eye open for suspicious characters, but even I must admit, we have more than our fair share of dicey drifters wandering up and down the street. Who is a thief and who is down on his luck is difficult to decipher.

In the meantime, we lock our doors, look up the prices of installation and monthly charges for alarm systems, and leave the radio on loudly when we go away. We randomly turn on lights and even bought one of those timers so the lamps turn on and off as if someone were home. While we are trying to teach the dog not to go ballistic every time someone walks by the house, we do let him bark so they know he's here.

Is all of this enough of a deterrent? Hard to say. So far, we have yet to be robbed. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, but so far we have yet to be tagged. I'm thankful we're fairly simple folk -- no flat screen TVs, no Blue-ray DVD players, no exotic fountains.

But I have been thinking about getting a nice set of bagpipes. Perhaps I should rethink that purchase.