Ultimate Dishonesty - Theft At The Finds Table

For the second time, in the last few years, we find again, someone or other had walked off with several gold and silver jewelry entries on our club "Finds Table" monthly competition. To say I find this more than odorous behavior on the first meeting of the new year, with a new staff, and hard-working members displaying their best finds, is an understatement of momentous proportions. We have, for years, done our best to watch over our small trays of entries; some members so nervous about entering certain finds, they bicycle-chained them to cinder blocks, of which are kind of hard to slip in a pocket or purse without notice. The first sign of a developing problem surfaced several years ago, when a member, collecting their finds for the return to their collection, noticed a small silver ring was missing from the display plate. It was not a huge, super-valuable item, but it was a significant find to the member, who was becoming frantic with a growing sense of loss, the worst loss imaginable; the loss of trust at a place deemed safe and secure among friends!

As club VP, I scanned the sea of faces at the meeting, many familiar, many not, many new, many not. Somewhere in that crowd lurked a thief. My personal view of a thief is the lowest of the low, a piece of putrid rot sticking to the bottom of cow crap in a garbage pile. Of course, here in this country, we are fairly soft on these piles of human refuse. Unlike less developed countries, where a body part would be removed for each conviction, after several convictions, the robber would be physically UNABLE to steal again. Of course, a wrong conviction would leave an injustice from which there would be no reprieve, but in my perfect world, that would not happen.

I think it is the fact someone probably came to the meeting with the sole intention of robbing a member of his rightful property...or someone of weak enough character who would make an instantaneous decision to not only stoop to the level of excrement and palm a  piece of property, but to steal the very peace of mind and security of the owner, that can never be returned even if the thief is caught!

Of course this is true of ALL theft, no exceptions on where or when, but I liked to think we were all somehow special, above the scum-sucking lowlife that preys on us everyday; lurking in the sewage, ready for the slightest opportunity. I was wrong.