Thoughts on larceny

         Those whom I’ve visited here in North Carolina have impressed on me that I must lock my car.  Now, my sister Jo lives in a rural area and even she was adamant that I not leave my keys in my car.  My friend Darlene, whom I visited on Friday, told me that her brother’s cars had been broken into, that in that area a young woman had walked in on a thief stealing things out of the house in mid-afternoon “because she needed them”.  The thief ran out of the house and was caught by the police 20 minutes later.  The friends I’ve been visiting outside of Wilmington lock their doors even during the day and cautioned me to lock my car at night and not leave anything valuable inside.  

 

           I’m dumbfounded.  How can one state, in three separate locations divided by hours, have the same problem?  Is life in Maine so idyllic and insular that people think nothing of leaving houses and cars unlocked, trusting that no one is going to rob them? Or is North Carolina unique in having a large population of larcenous souls?  And why, I ask myself, as I have many times in the past, would anyone think they are more entitled to someone’s goods than the person who owns them? What makes a person so utterly devoid of conscience that they think it’s okay to break and enter, to appropriate someone else’s property, to lay claim to items of whatever ilk that don’t belong to them? Is this an outgrowth of our “entitlement society”?  Is it caused by our increasing police state, emboldening the rebellious to strike back at society in general, in protest of the constant tightening down of personal liberty?  Could it be boredom or callousness from our constant flood of bread and circus?

           Whatever the cause, it’s a disturbing trend.  I’m left to wonder if this is peculiar to North Carolina or if Maine is the odd man out.  I’m sure I’ll get a clearer picture as my travels continue, and I can only hope that North Carolina is idiosyncratic and not indicative of a general malaise.