Not quite 'up your sleeve'

I'm not quite sure when the last time I chuckled while slowly shaking my head was.

That was pretty much what I was doing as I drove to the McDonald's on the south side of Mason City that is my favorite snack 'n study, where I peruse three different newspapers on any given weekday.

It was about a quarter to noon and the sun was climbing high in the sky as I put my car in 'drive' and straightened the wheels out. As I built up a bit of road speed, Mark Dorenkamp of local AM radio station KGLO shared some of the stranger news items of the day.

Last week, he explained, three men entered Music Maniac in the Lewiston Mall, in Lewiston, Maine (where else?). Two acted as lookouts while the third swiped a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar - the currently five hundred or so dollar model used by everyone from Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens in the late 50's to John Lennon and George Harrison starting in 1965 to Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, and Jimi Hendricks circa 1970 to Bonnie Riatt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and John Mayer in more recent years - and stuffed it down his pants before the three fled the store.

I'd have to imagine that this guy wasn't wearing a tight fitting pair of blue jeans.

With the very low hung, excessively baggy styles popular in the last decade, one has to wonder what all people have managed to stuff down their drawers through the years.

Back on January 7th, at about one in the morning, a twenty four year old woman arrived at the Montegomery County, Iowa, jail in Red Oak to post bail for her thirty three year old boyfriend, who had been arrested for trafficking methanphetamines. She offered her drivers' license and a submitted to the required precursory background check to verify that there were no outstanding warrants for her arrest. With no 'hits' on her name, the jailer on duty allowed her through the first door.

Sometime very soon after that, this gal, who appeared in her freshly taken mugshot photos to be forty four instead of twenty four, whipped out a sawed-off shotgun from down her pant leg. She ordered the jailer to release her boyfriend, and once he was free, she ordered the woman into the cell, locked the door, and fled the building through the main entrance.

Waiting just long enough to ensure that the pair was in fact gone, the jailer pulled her cell phone out of her pants (pocket) and called over to dispatch to report the jailbreak.

Both were apprehended a few hours later in relatively nearby Omaha and were held pending extradition on what authorities described as being 'a slew of charges'.

Yes, loose clothing, especially pants, allows ample opportunity to hide things, be it merchandise in a store, weapons, or other contraband. School officials have expressed dire concern about this for years.

One bright side to this: When your trousers are barely riding on your hips because they're at least six inches too big in the waist, try the old so-called 'Mexican' style of carrying a weapon (such as a pistol or revolver) in your waistband, sans holster. I think you'd find it doesn't work so well!

I was doing some yard work one afternoon a few years back, and one of the early adolescent neighbor kids was dressed like that. Jokingly I asked him if he'd like to borrow a belt. He lifted his sweatshirt to reveal that he did in fact already have one! It was one of those loosely braided leather thong ones, and it may have even been somewhat tied instead of secured by the buckle. It was there, but it sure wasn't doing anything to keep his boxer shorts hidden!

One way that people have been carrying 'bad things' in their pants has finally started to receive a lot more attention by diligent law enforcement officers, many of which have been wounded or killed through the ages when they overlooked this S.O.B. - the Small Of the Back. Pistols, blades, drugs, and even handcuff keys have been hidden there and completely missed during pat downs during the arrest procedure. It does not take much imagination to see exactly how this can go very wrong later while the prisoner is being transported, interrogated, or detained.

On the other hand, the small of the back is about the most unsafe place to carry anything, and this is something a number of cops and security guards have learned the hard way. A handcuff case can cause a lot of damage if you fall flat on your back or get shoved hard against a wall by a combative suspect upon apprehension. About the only thing I'd want to be wearing right there on an equipment belt would be a leather or nylon pouch containing nitrile gloves. Maybe plastic handcuffs, the type that are disposable and resemble a nylon cable tie, would be all right, but I'd want to discuss it and think long and hard about it before I did it or encouraged anyone else to. Otherwise, no handcuffs, radios, pistol magazines, flashlights, or anything else should go there. I can't imagine it'd be much fun to sit in a chair or in a vehicle seat with something hard exerting pressure there, anyway. Of course, not being able to walk again isn't exactly a picnic, either!

On at least one occasion, someone in possession of powdered cocaine has desperately attempted to hide it during a traffic stop by dropping it down their pants. I suppose this could work, but should the powder spill - and it has - someone's about to get an object lesson in chemistry. Namely, a 'living definition' of 'caustic'. Of course, the cop doesn't know why the guy's squirming and fidgeting. Not, at least, until the druggie loses his composure and cries, "Ahhhhg! It BURNS!". If I was the cop, were it not for dash cams, I imagine my response would be, "And this is my problem how?"

Still, my favorite story of someone sticking something in their pants has to be a stunt a certain Nigel Firth of Bristol, England pulled about eight years ago. Maybe Mr. Firth succumbed to an uncontrollable appetite when he acted on an urge to relieve his local supermarket of a couple of live lobsters who were spending their last days in the store's tank. He ran for the door, but never quite made it. From what I'm told, his plight quickly drew the attention of pretty much everyone in the vicinity. By the time it was over, the EMT's were having to use a large pair of pliers to unclamp one or both of the aggravated crustaceans who'd elected to agonize Nigel in a very, very personal kind of way. Last I heard, the store management declined to press charges, perhaps showing a bit of empathy for the beleaguered crook.

Strangely, the AP article about the Music Mania heist points out that someone was caught doing the very same thing in 2006.

Too bad guitars don't have claws!

Keeping my 30x30 Wrangler's where they belong with a belt and my shirt tucked in,

the TiGor