The Carmel Crime Cone
[Originally published at thekindland.com.]
I enjoy playing a game called “Fantasy Lottery.” It’s not really a game so much as it’s just me daydreaming about what I will do with the money when I win the lottery. At the top of my list is purchasing a chunk of land in Big Sur, my favorite place on Earth. The Hobbit house I have designed for the property will be built into a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean where there will be a sea otter sanctuary, a free-range dachshund village, a cheeseburger farm, and it will only be accessible by a marshmallow helicopter.
Since I’m going to be moving to Big Sur, I thought it would be a good idea to stay abreast of the local news in the area. Unfortunately Big Sur does not have a local paper, but the neighboring town of Carmel-By-The-Sea does: The Carmel Pinecone. Although I call it The Carmel Crimecone because the only section I find myself reading every week is the “Police, Fire, And Sheriff’s Log,” the local crime blotter. If I’m going to be living in Big Sur, I need to familiarize myself with the local crime scene so that I can stay one step ahead of its villains. One can never have enough fantasy security for one’s fantasy property.
It should be noted that Carmel-By-The-Sea is a small, but very affluent community. Clint Eastwood was once the mayor. They also host a prestigious PGA Tour event on their Pebble Beach golf course. This is, in short, a town that is full of rich people, and rich people crimes are very different from poor people crimes. For the most part, the Log is filled with mundane traffic stops and lost dogs, but there are always a handful of very curious incidents entered into the log each week:
“Five Piles of Pig Feces” isn’t quite a band name, but it would make a great song or album title.
One thing I’ve learned from the Crimecone is that rich people love to call the cops. About anything. I can’t wait to move there and call the cops on my cat next time he brings a fucking dead animal into the house. “Yes, officer, there’s been… A MURDER!”
The bums of Carmel-by-the-Sea are a colorful lot, but there wasn’t much activity from them this week. There’s one, for instance, who leaves notes at businesses inviting the owners to spaghetti-and-meatball dinners. And then there’s a female one who poops all over the place in public, and then denies that the poop is hers. I like to imagine the subject above is her packing her musket with free hotel breakfasts.
Yep, in addition to Clint Eastwood, Mary fucking Poppins lives there too.
Twenty-seven-year-old designer, on coke, released to his parents… It sounds like a magical place. (All three of those golfers are on coke also.)
Again, you can call the cops on cats? The crazy Hungarian cat lady across the street from me has five of those fuckers that leave more than five piles of feces in my yard nearly every day…