Why are thieves so inconsiderate?

Thieves are so rude! And kind of incompetent.

I arrived at my car this morning, in the basement level of my parking garage, to find that a third person wanted to steal the $100 stereo from this particular 1998 Honda Civic. Yes, this is the third time somebody has broken into this car to steal the stereo. Unlike the first two thieves, this person succeeded only in offending me by failing to actually remove the stereo from the car. But mostly I was offended by the many inconsiderate and thoughtless acts of the thief, which I shall enumerate here.

1. The thief could not remove the stereo yet took the face plate. Thief, I understand that you were frustrated because you realized you are incompetent at your (hopefully) second career choice as a robber. However, I'm not sure what you are going to do with a face plate and no stereo. Just wipe it down for fingerprints and leave it for the proper owner to use next time.

2. I am now stuck with a useless electronic device. That means I have to make a special trip to dispose of it, and that takes gas. Thief, you are ruining the environment twice over.

3. The thief stole my registration. Please tell me what he or she is going to do with that. Now, I have to deal with the DMV, which we all know is like dealing with somebody who is super excited to see you--except the opposite.

4. Though the thief was in the trunk, he or she did not take the stuff I had in there for Goodwill. How do I know the thief was in the trunk? There was a pleasant fruity aroma in the trunk from either cologne/perfume or gum that also permeated the car. I watched the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes the night before, so my powers of deduction were primed. Unfortunately, the thief did not want the giant bag of stuff destined for Goodwill that was sitting there in the trunk. At least save me a trip!

5. The thief tried to destroy the air vents, which makes the car look kind of crummy. What am I supposed to say when a passenger gets in, wades around the piles of trash, tries to ignore the thick layer of dust, and then notices that the vents have been hacked to smithereens?

6. The thief reoriented the stereo to the point that the proper tools cannot remove it. As I was trying to get the rest of the device out of the car, all the time worrying that somebody would pass by and mistake me as the thief, I only managed to lodge the stereo further into the dash. You may think that I can now understand how the thief had such a difficult time, and you're sort of right. But I am confident that my inability to pull the stereo from the car is directly because of the thief's wrecking ball approach--well, sort of confident.

7. The thief netted a haul of one working auxiliary cord, one broken auxiliary cord (sucker!), one scratched Live Throwing Copper CD (try selling that), a gate clicker (come back any time, you moron), a parking pass (bring your car), an unusable face plate (which may cost some money to replace), my ability to listen to music (this is the only thing that actually sucks) and my faith in an entire occupation (I apologize to all of you competent thieves out there). All of these are gone.

8. Oh yeah, the thief tried to steal something from me.

On the plus side, the thief left all my windows intact, which may mean I left the door unlocked. So, I'm going to give myself credit for that one. This thief also only took one CD instead of an entire book of them like the last one. Yeah, the last one was an idiot, too. You sure as hell weren't going to be selling CDs for a lot of money five years ago. The other nice thing is the pleasant aroma I mentioned. The car has never smelled better.

Given the frequency with which the bottom-of-the-line stereo is taken from my car, I have decided that once I can remove the current remnant, I will fill the hole with a Sony Walkman from 1988. I am hoping this will alert thieves to the fact that the music playing device is worth nothing. Of course, kids probably haven't seen a Walkman and may think it's the newest device. Guess I'll just have to buy another crappy stereo.

But first I'll have to figure out how to get the rest of this one out. Anybody have a crow bar I can borrow?