By Jim Hagarty
We have a thief in our neighbourhood and it’s troubling. So far, the culprit has made off with only small things – rhubarb plants (removed by the roots), steel bars, old panelling, used two-by-fours.
But the absconder is getting more brazen. A new house was being building directly across the street from our place after the house that was there burned down. One day, the concrete trucks arrived. They poured the footings. Came back a few days later and poured the walls.
The stealer man noticed that each time the concrete truck left the site, the workers left behind a neat little pile of wet concrete on the ground. They should have put a sign in the pile, “Free.”
Shovel by shovel, the neighbour stealthily removed great quantities of the concrete which he put to good use as mortar for his stone porch which was getting wobbly. However, he made one critical error. He stopped for supper one night and when he went back, the concrete in the pile had set.
I feel like Grover Monster from Sesame Street who was featured in a great kids’ book, There’s a Monster at the End of this Book. All the through the book, poor Grover gets more and more worried about the monster he will meet at the end of the book and he tries to get the reader to stop, so the end won’t be reached. But alas, he makes it, only to find the monster is himself.
My front porch never looked better.
