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Sunday, June 19, 2011

It's a sad day for Paisley Pumpkin

This afternoon the TN neighbor called to chat and was taking inventory of my outdoor items at the cabin. Someone stole my bench. The one that is the centerpiece of the Paisley Pumpkin blog banner. 

Now money-wise it's not a big loss. I paid $20 or $25 for it at a thrift store and then $8 or so on black spray paint. That's not the point. It was cute. It was prefect for the spot. It was MINE. I bought it. I got my happy ass out of bed at 7am to go to work, to collect a paycheck, so that I could buy stuff I wanted. Like this little bench. If there is one thing I detest it's thievery. If it's not yours, leave it alone. 

The neighbor had called the sheriff's office and they sent someone out. Turns out stuff was missing from several other cabins as well. It was weird - it was like they took bits and pieces from each place in order to decorate their own. They didn't clear out stuff from anyone. Believe me when I say my neighbor has a gorgeous deck. She's got an ornately carved wood porch swing, a pair of black rocking chairs, a vintage Coke cooler - the kind with legs and a bottle opener on the front, whiskey barrels, split log benches, Cedar Adirondack chairs, all kinds of nice stuff (unlike me, mine is all inexpensive and frankly there isn't that much of it...I was still working on that - not sure if i'm going to continue since i'm going to have to either bolt it down or haul it all down to the basement every time we leave).

They took a large salt glaze crock and a whiskey barrel planter from my neighbor's deck...but they neatly lined up the grapevine balls (that had been in the crock) along the bench it had been sitting on. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!  They took one of the two wood rocking chairs from the cabin on the other side of the neighbor's place. They weren't nice like the one's on my neighbor's deck - they were unpainted, weathered and old...yet they took one of those instead of the nice ones.

The sheriff said they would have patrol run thru once per hour for the next week, but that they really weren't obligated to do so (really? Small town, not a lot going on, what exactly DO you have to do besides drive around and PATROL for that sort of thing happening?). He also told her that they've only had ONE break-in there, about a year ago a cabin was burglarized and all they took was the flat panel TV. Turned out to be someone from the cleaning crew...so it wasn't even a random happening, it was someone who had access to the place

This just really bums me out. Some of us were trying to bring the resort back to life with redoing the cabins and taking pride in the ones that weren't rental properties and frankly, my guess would be someone else in the complex that's redoing a place. It wouldn't surprise me if more stuff is missing when I get back up there later this month.

That said, I bought a video security system the other day so that will be getting set up ASAP. I'm sad that it's necessary...because I was buying it just to see what was going on around the cabin, NOT to catch thieves. *sigh*  

 The bench as it was at the thrift store (they need to reset the date on their camera...)
 The bench the week we "moved in"
 Still brown...but decorated for Christmas...
 Now here's my neighbor's deck - I told you it was nice! See the crock on the old bench...
 She changes everything for all the holidays.
 Her front door...
 The $400 carved bear that they didn't take and the $15 whiskey barrel of flowers that they did...
 More of her stuff...
 From the entry way onto her deck.
 My dumb little bench in the midst of being painted black...
 Last fall after it was painted....
 Getting decked out for Christmas...

 I wonder if they would have taken the pillow if it was still there...I mean, they left the rug, the lighted pine tree, the little blue bench and the canvas banner (not a Christmas one LOL)

*UGH* I'm so friggin' MAD! Goodbye little bench...you will be missed. I hope your dishonest, low life, new owners enjoy you as much as I did.

1 comments:

Cherrie said...

Oh, that makes me mad too! I have had things stolen from my front porch and was in shock! I think you should go driving around town and see if you spot anything. Love your blog!