The paperboy was remiss. Surely. Every other day, we’d go out to our front walk, find our paper missing (how can you find something that’s still missing?), utter a few choice words under our breath at the paperboy, come back inside, and call the newspaper distribution center for a replacement. The distribution center was literally down our street, so it would only be a matter of minutes before a new one showed up at our door. No harm, no foul. Not really, anyway. The paperboy was probably getting reamed by his boss, but you know how sympathetic I am toward paperboys.

Then one day, about two weeks into our mystery, we were telling our neighbors about our plight, once again placing the blame squarely on the paperboy.

“Hey, we’re having problems with our paper, too,” Greg said. Greg is a man as passionate about his morning paper as we are, and he was eager to vent his frustrations on some empathetic ears. “Found mine missing again this morning.”

“That’s strange. We actually got ours this morning. What about yesterday? Did you get yours yesterday?”

“Yes. But not the day before.”

We’d been had. Our buns were officially chapped. This wasn’t the work of some errant paperboy. Someone was picking off our newspapers, spreading the crime wave across two neighbors. We were getting hit on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Greg was being victimized on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The methodical prick was missing his game on Sundays; there didn’t seem to be any consistent pattern to his theft of the motherload of coupons. I suspect he was out partying a bit too much on Saturday nights to care much about the Sunday morning funnies.

This guy picked the wrong people to pick off.

Greg and Tim quickly launched into thought-mode. They were going to get this guy. I was seven months pregnant, so I wasn’t going to be doing any getting. I was just going to sit back and watch.

The alarm went off at the crack of dawn the next day. 5:00 a.m. Tim hopped out of bed, got some clothes on and went outside. Greg was there waiting for him. They enjoyed a cup of coffee and some doughnuts (Krispy Kremes, of course — also within walking distance of our home) on Greg’s porch and waited for the paper to arrive. 5:18. THUNK. THUNK.

Tim and Greg each retrieved their newspapers, opened them up, selected a page, and wrote “I was stolen from 543 (and 541) E. Smith Street” on the top of the selected page. The marked pages were returned to their rightful places within the papers; and the papers were returned to their rightful places on the sidewalk. Tim and Greg got into Greg’s car and literally hunkered down for the morning. The sting was on.

5:30.

5:45.

6:00.

6:15.

It didn’t look like it was going to happen. Greg and Tim were just about to pack in their surveillance equipment when they spotted someone walking up the other side of the street.

Wrong side of the street. Perhaps it just wasn’t going to happen.

Wait! He’s crossing the street!

He was now on our side of the block. Could this be the guy? Tim and Greg watched carefully. Just as he was passing our walkway, he quickly bent down, scooped up the paper and promptly tucked it under his arm. Bands of gypsy children could not have been any more surreptitious.

Greg and Tim sprung into action. They hunkered down even further into Greg’s car, fully out of sight of the passing thief. Greg opened his cell phone.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Riiiing.

“911. What is the location of your emergency?”

“541 E. Smith Street. I’d like to report a theft. Someone has just stolen my newspaper and he’s heading west on foot on E. Smith Street…” Someone has stolen my newspaper.

Tim and Greg waited until the thief had walked a fair distance down the block, got out of the car, and proceeded to follow him. All the while, they remained on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. I can only guess what that dispatcher was thinking. Something about real crime, perhaps.

“The suspect has turned on to Person. He’s now heading south on Person.” Greg was taking his job a little too seriously.

They began to hear sirens. A police car sped past them. Another police car, coming from the south, the wrong way up a one-way street, pulled on to the sidewalk and blocked the path of the thief. The just-passed police car blocked the thief’s path from the rear. Tim and Greg stayed back to watch. The officers got out of their cars.

“DROP THAT PAPER!” (Just read that line, one more time.)

The thief, stunned, quickly complied. He raised his arms high in the air. I don’t think this was his first run-in with the police.

I now must pause to fill you in on a significant piece of information that I’ve refrained from revealing until now: All of this went down on September 12th. 2001. A day after our nation was attacked by terrorists. Another significant piece of information: our thief was stopped directly in front of the Federal Building. The Federal Building. On September 12th, 2001. A “heightened state of alert” would be putting it mildly.

Four SWAT troopers, brandishing machine guns, stormed out of the building and surrounded the suspect. Their firearms were pointed directly at the thief.

“Any problem, officers?”

I guess he really wanted to read that newspaper.