BEST Crime Spree EVER

It is a given that the girl who grew up in the safest town in America would move to just outside a city that has one of the highest murder rates in the country.

But it turns out that these alleged statistics are just that… statistics. They aren't "real". This became painfully evident a few weeks ago, when my mother called to report a crime spree, in her neighbourhood, which happens to be located in the heart of the safest town in America. That's right, East Amherst, NY is under siege…a crime emergency if you will. She reported that the spare key they keep outside the house was missing, the side garage door was open, and that the glove compartment of the car had been rummaged through.

Being the good daughter that I am, I cautioned her to change the locks on the house and not keep a spare key outside the house.

Fast forward to a few nights ago. I get a phone call. Because my phone is microscopic and I can never find it when it rings buried at the bottom of my bag, I didn't actually answer it. The message was my mother saying, "Hi Kim, I'm calling to tell you about the crime…" followed by a good 2-3 minutes of hysterical laughing.

Fearing that this was the iguana story all over again (another post for another time), I nervously called home. It turns out that she was just calling to report that East Amherst was safe once again. A group of teenagers had been arrested in the neighbourhood for rummaging through cars and the like.

Doing what people do in the suburbs, the neighbors on the street starting to call around, asking if anyone else had a brush with the crime emergency. In doing this, my mother learned that one of the neighbors had reported that something was missing from their car….what was missing was actually the cause of the hysteria… it was a box of tic-tacs.

That's right, one of the most annoying forms of breath mints on the face of this planet (the stupid box makes too much noise and they never leave you with a minty fresh feeling) had been STOLEN. Not only STOLEN, but reported as STOLEN.

It's my hope that the hoodlums of the safest town in America never make their way to DC and that we can all continue walk around this city with our tic-tacs, altoids, Listerine strips, or what have you safe in our purses, pockets, cars, etc.