There is a Thief Among Us

I'm not kidding, there is a thief in our neighborhood and I'm on the lookout! I'll admit it, I may be over-reacting, but I'm sure some of you will be able to empathize. The rest of you, well.......you'll just get a good laugh out of my "loss".

You see, back in February I signed up and paid to get weekend newspaper delivery to our house. The very first day our paper was delivered it kind of landed between our driveway and our neighbors. I have never noticed the neighbor having paper delivery, so knowing our first paper should have been delivered that day, I brought it in. It was really no big deal, the neighbor never said anything to me and I never said anything to them. The paper has continued to arrive like clockwork ever since.

My boys' rooms overlook the driveway and every morning when I wake them up, I open their blinds and the bright orange bag the paper comes in almost always catches my eye. The boys leave for school out the back door and there are days I don't make it out front until late in the afternoon, if at all (some days during the winter). Although the newspaper has been deposited on our driveway on the days it should be, I have noticed that it's not always down on the drive when I get around to bringing it in. My paper has a way of mysteriously disappearing! At first I thought the paper wasn't getting delivered or maybe it was just getting covered by snow, so I started paying close attention. There have been plenty of days when I have noticed it laying in the driveway and when I have gone out to retrieve it later, it has vanished! I look everywhere and it is nowhere to be found.

All week I look forward to the Sunday newspaper. I acknowledge that we have a cruddy coupon section, but I still look forward to the few coupons we do get and I definitely look forward to the ads. Let's fast-forward to yesterday, Sunday morning. Eric, Kaiden and I (Logan spent the night at a friend's) went for a walk first thing in the morning, around 8:15. On our way out, Eric picked up the newspaper and heaved it at least halfway up the driveway. He did this intentionally, because he wanted to be sure the paper didn't disappear from the end of the drive while we were out walking. We got back about 45 minutes later and as Eric had feared, the paper was GONE! I still can't believe it was just GONE!

Kaiden took a little shortcut back to the house, so he arrived back home just before we did. As Eric and I walked up the driveway, Eric realized the paper was missing and he questioned Kaiden to see if he had maybe taken it up to the porch. He hadn't. After careful consideration, we've narrowed our thief down to two options. The thief is either our next door neighbor (we only have neighbors on one side), or the dog who lives two doors down. Kaiden insists the dog fetches the newspaper for its owner, but I'm not so sure. Even if the dog does fetch, I find it highly unlikely that the dog would wander over to our house, would trapse half-way up our driveway and would carry our Sunday paper back home. I know stanger things have happened, but I'm not convinced.

I'm now on the lookout! I figured I'll wait until the paper disappears again before I politely ask the neighbor if they're taking it. Until then, my eyes are peeled!!!!!!