The laziest criminals in Beaufort County are just like birds ... trust me, they are

The laziest criminals in Beaufort County are at it again.

They’re like birds. Leave a little suet and millet out for them, and there they are, opening our car doors and rifling through our stuff.

OK. Maybe birds don’t do that. Maybe our laziest criminals aren’t exactly “like birds.” But I’m not about to give up on this simile.

If you want birds to chirp outside your window, put out some seed.

If you want Beaufort County’s laziest criminals to strike, leave your car unlocked, preferably with some valuables in sight, the more valued and visible the better … laptops, cash, guns, Christmas toys for all the girls and boys. Just spread that good cheer all over your back seat.

And then wait.

Within hours you’ll be delighted, and stricken, to find that the little critters, also the big ones, visited you.

It’s that easy.

You do all the work to earn the things — so much work that you sometimes forget to bring those earned things into the house, so much that you sometimes forget to lock the car door.

And the only effort the laziest criminals in Beaufort County have to make is to pull at a handle with one hand and cross their fingers on the other. After that it’s “Thank you, Santa Claus! I’ve always wanted a gloopy tube of Revlon mascara and an $8 formerly white dog bed from Publix!”

That’s what you’ll get if you break into my car, so don’t you do it, you lazies.

Honestly, the only way these criminals could be any lazier is if they picked up our spare change and Chapsticks with their feet.

Actually, I can’t promise you that they’re not doing that. I can’t promise you that they’re not actually sighing very heavily when they find that a car door is locked.

I assume they are.

“Ugh. I have to smash it. Mondays are the worst. Pass me my mallet of mischief.”

(Forgive me, I don’t know criminal vocab terms so I have to use my own.)

This week, Bluffton Police Department put out an alert that car break-ins have been reported in a number of neighborhoods locally. The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office is also seeing an uptick in car break-ins, including some at gyms.

Gyms!

Talk about an attack on the capital.

While the diligent are inside building stamina, the indolent are out in the parking lot treating their cars like scratch-off tickets, just begging the universe to reward them for their wrist exertion.

“Come on, generous cash donation meant for someone else! Come on, bank card accidentally left in the console after a Starbucks run! Come on, gifts for yourself that you hid from your husband!”

I really shouldn’t mock the shiftless. Not that they’d see this as a challenge to up their crime game or anything, on account of the word “challenge.”

But you never know. There might be that one laziest criminal in Beaufort County who is contemplating his 2017 resolutions as we speak.

“I’m going to break into more things that aren’t just cars, and I will NOT give up on this goal in February like last year.”

I won’t bait that guy by overstressing his laziness.

But the others … they’re super lazy.

And there’s only one way to fight the Tyranny of the Lazy: Make things more difficult for them so they give up and move on.

On Wednesday, I spoke with Joy Nelson of Bluffton Police and Capt. Bob Bromage of the Sheriff’s Office about the break-ins.

Both said the same thing: Don’t leave out birdseed.

They didn’t say that. I just really wanted the criminal-bird comparison to work.

They both reminded residents to lock up their cars and hide the things they don’t want stolen. Bromage also advises residents to set their car alarms.

Nelson and I talked about the false sense of security we sometimes have here, and why people might not always lock their cars.

Even after break-ins like this.

“They’ll do it for a while,” she said. “But they’ll get complacent.”

Do not get complacent.

We cannot let these door-pullers and window-smashers win.

We have to stand up and say hands off our laptops and our cash and our ... guns? (literally that is the first time I’ve ever said that) … and our Christmas toys for all the girls and boys and my Revlon mascara.

No, really, if I don’t have on mascara, people ask me why my eyes are closed.

So please don’t steal it, you lazies.

This story was originally published December 21, 2016 at 6:18 PM with the headline "The laziest criminals in Beaufort County are just like birds ... trust me, they are."