Mr. Thief strikes again
LEE ZION, EDITOR
Harrison County Times-Reporter
Today, as I write this, I had an encounter with Mr. Thief.
Earlier this evening, I returned to my apartment, and something wacky happened. Now, I know what some of you are thinking: “Wait. ANOTHER wacky thing happened to Lee Zion? No way!”
The thing is this. I climb a set of stairs to get to my apartment. At the top of the stairs is a door.
I leave that door wide open during the day, because I don’t want to try opening the door while climbing the stairs and possibly losing my balance. I really don’t want to tumble down the stairs, bonking my head on each step.
I’ve made it through the past few weeks just fine. But today, just as I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut.
It took me a while to figure out what happened. By opening the door downstairs, I changed the air pressure. That caused a sudden gust of wind, and it caught the door. So it slammed.
Instantly, my mind raced and took me back to an incident more than 40 years ago: Mr. Thief.
At the time, I was still in high school, and my brother Jai lived a short distance away, in New York City. He lived in the same building as our cousin, Jon. When they were growing up, being close in age, they were inseparable. And they were both practical jokers.
On this particular day, the two of them returned to Jon’s apartment, but there was a thief inside. As soon as Jon started to open the door, the thief pushed on the door from the other side, slamming it shut. Then he exited through the fire escape.
Once the two of them recovered from their shock, they thought the whole thing was really funny. They decided that they needed to give any future thieves more warning. So, for the next few years, every time they came home, they recited their comedy routine. Speaking in high-pitched squeaks, they’d say,
“Mr. Thief? Mr. Thief? We wanted to let you know that we’re home now. So if you could be on your way, that would be really nice.”
Over time, the messages became more elaborate. But they were always funny.
And then, I got involved. At the time, Jai was notorious for never being home, and never returning calls no matter how many messages I left on his answering machine.
(You remember answering machines, right? It was a box that sat next to your landline phone and allowed you to record a message on a cassette. What’s a cassette? you ask. Sigh.)
One time, I was particularly annoyed, so I left an inspired response, in a high-pitched squeak:
“Mr. Thief? Mr. Thief? I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to hurry. Jai’s never home. That’s why he has this answering machine! But not for lo-ong! Not for long, Mr. Thief, because you’re here! Anyway, before you steal it, can you leave a message for him? Let him know Lee called. Y’know, his bruhh-ther? It’s OK if you don’t know; sometimes he forgets.”
I then left the real message. Did he call back? No.
So this incident took me back more than four decades. I realized that I had to share it, so I called my brother and left a message.
This time, he DID call back.
