Crime Spree

Well - we had an exciting night last night.

Eldest bro and his gf came past to pick up The Hun and I to take us to mumsy and dadsy's. My aunty was celebrating her 40th birthday at a pub out in whoop-whoop and eldest bro would drive himself, his gf, The Hun and I and middle bro would drive himself, youngest bro, mumsy and dadsy because that's just the way you have to roll when you're invited places as a pack of eight.

We played some Mario Kart first (if you or a friend of yours has a Wii then you MUST already know this!) and I got my lose on, before we realised it was 6pm and time to bundle off for the long drive out. Eldest bro only had a quarter tank of petrol in his gf's car, so we went to the local service station, filled up and waited for the other car to turn up. It didn't. A call from middle bro told us that they couldn't find dadsy's car keys so we decided to come back to the house and wait there.

Cue a scene of eight people looking in every possible place for at least one of two sets of keys - youngest bro was sure he left them on his desk in the garage (his computer is in the shed as he is a young adult and the KFC wrappers, coke cans and empty bottles of beam were drawing mice into the house. Problem solved - put him in the garage with the cars).

Youngest bro was the first to decide the keys had been stolen. The garage door was left up, the computer screen was illuminating a few things, the sensor light wasn't on - someone must have just snuck up the driveway and knicked them. "What about those guys standing two houses up the middle of the street? They were there when we left to get petrol and they were still there when we came back?" - so dadsy, middle bro and eldest bro headed up the street to talk the three youngish looking men. I'm not sure what they asked exactly, but they told them that some keys had gone missing and had they seen anything? The guys responded with no they hadn't, had the car been stolen?, and that they were just there waiting for a friend so they could all go to a party. Then they started walking up the street.

Dadsy, middle bro and eldest bro came back to the house then middle bro and eldest bro headed back out with a torch, sure that the guys on the street had them and hoping that they'd chuck the keys now that they were onto them. They reasoned that they must be lying because they weren't waiting for their friend, so they snuck off after them with a torch, scanning the street from a distance and eavesdropping on what the guys were saying: 'Do you have any transport?'.

Back at the house, mumsy called her sister to let her know we wouldn't be able to make it, and sorry that they'd know have eight empty seats - unluckilly, her car decided to stop working earlier that morning and two visits from the NRMA had shown that it was just f*cked and needed to be towed - it was sitting in the garage with the keys in the ignition. While mumsy was on the phone, youngest bro was relaying his reasoning for the keys having to have been stolen - earlier that night he'd put some DVD's in the back of dadsy's car and put the car keys on the desk next to where middle bro had put the other set of keys earlier that night. As he put the keys down he saw another DVD he wanted to watch (dadsy's car is a big commodore thing he got through work that has a wanky DVD player in the back seat). He picked it up and went to put it in the car, realised it was locked, was too lazy to go back to get the keys so left the DVD on the roof of the car and went back into the house where we all were. The car was now unlocked. Someone had to have touched the keys.

This was enough to convince dadsy to call the police (Thanks ACT police! Thanks for NOTHING!) and a locksmith - one of the sets of keys had all the housekeys on it as well. We decided that as the meal was meant to be at a pub that night, we'd get some pizza and some grog and watch a few movies. Mumsy placed the order and I begged eldest bro to take me down to the groggo while we picked up dinner. There are two groggos at the local shops - one near the pizza place and one near the woolies - eldest bro wanted some snacks, so we headed up the woolies groggo.

On the drive into the shopping centre eldest bro told me about what he had planned to say in the confrontation - I had no idea what I would have said. His tactic was to explain that to put their mind at ease could they please empty their pockets, and if they couldn't then they would call the police - they really didn't want to take it that far, but they needed some peace of mind. We were discussing the events of the evening as we walked past the fish and chip shop and saw some guys walking out. I was thinking to myself how terrible the youth of today are, whilst eldest bro recognised them as the guys from the street. He didn't say anything, but as we walked towards Woolies we were talking about how shady it was - they weren't going to a party, they'd walked up for fish and chips. Something was fishy (pun half intended).

We got some biscuits and soft drinks, then headed into the groggo. I picked up some double strength cruisers (lemon and lime! yum!) and then we headed to the counter to pay for them - there were a few woolies staff standing around the entrance, looking serious and chatting animatedly. "Surely you'd notice if you dropped your keys!". Hrm! We stood at the counter and as one of the guys got ready to scan our drinks I asked him if someone else had lost some keys tonight as we'd lost some as well. He looked at us cryptically and we eventually told him that we'd had two pairs of keys stolen from our house and that the guys that had been hanging around our street that we think stole them had just walked out of the fish and chip shop. This is when the shop guy started acting really weird (perhaps he didn't want to incriminate anyone) and told us that we should call the police and let them know that our stolen keys may be related to an 'incident' that had occured earlier that night. He said that they had a pair of keys in the safe, that they had prints of the guys,that they had photos of at least two of the three guys that had been in the shop and that the takeaway across the way would have clear photos of their faces.

'Wouldn't it be exciting if it were them! Then they could get caught!'. We gave dadsy's details to the shop guy and he promised to call them in the morning. On the way out we saw that there was a camera outside the fish and chip shop, that centre management would be able to see the footage of eldest bro and I walking in, and those guys walking out.

Dadsy received a phone call this morning - yes, it was our keys. Those three guys had tried to steal some grog from woolies. They also stole grog from two houses up - the house they were standing outside. How much of a fluke is that?!

$750 later for lock changing, dadsy has to stay home tomorrow to get the car keys changed - the guys still have one set of keys and have not been caught.

Just who are these fearless types of people that steal grog from a house, stand outside to drink it, steal two sets of car keys and wait near the house to rob it, try to steal some grog, get caught and go to another shop in the centre to get dinner?!