Sign of the times

The theft of 500 gallons of fuel oil from our beloved local post office on Tuesday night is a sign of the sorry state of our times. Despite the fact that there was a lock on the tank and a big gnarly fence around it, somebody snuck into our quiet little village and pumped it all out.

Oil is valuable stuff.

I don't see this kind of thing easing up any with time. A lot of the local prognosticators at the park, the post office, the bar (you know, wherever the news is passed on in our fair republic) have been speculating for some time that we might see a rash of thefts once winter loomed on the horizon--but I don't think any of them suspected that it would happen here. Or quite so soon. We'll know we're in real trouble when firewood starts getting pinched (the price of that has been going up, too, as I'm sure many of you have noticed.

Whoever stole the oil may have thought they were getting back at the gummint, or that the oil would be insured so they weren't really hurting anybody, or maybe it was just convenient and had easy access and getaway routes, but damnit, this is OUR post office they stole from, and they made it that much harder for our postmaster.