Lost Another One

Last night someone came through my neighborhood and stole all of the Obama signs in everyone’s front yard. They also stole the ones in front of the Green Hills Library polling place.

Frankly I’m surprised it took them so long. My yard sign has been unmolested for months, whereas during the 2004 campaign, I went through nearly a dozen Kerry-Edwards signs in the course of four months. It got to the point of hilarity because what the thieves didn’t know is that I was the one responsible for bringing campaign signs to Music Row Democrats events. I had a couple hundred of them in my garage and if one disappeared, it was quickly replaced. Just as an act of defiance, I decided to replace every one stolen yard sign with two new ones. By election day I had them hanging from trees all over the yard.

The sign that lasted the longest was a carboard one we had attached to a wooden stake which was then set in Quikrete. I took great pleasure in imagining someone’s futile attempts to pull the stake out of the ground, getting a few splinters in the process. Alas, someone eventually figured out how to break the wooden stake, and even that yard sign disappeared.

I never understood the whole “steal the yard sign” tactic. It seems so juvenile. In fact, I always assumed it was kids perpetrating this petty act of vandalism until one morning I caught a man in his 50s pulling up my yard sign and chucking it in the back of a white pickup truck, which was filled with yard signs. He hopped in his car and drove off before I could accost him. So that’s when I realized it was probably campaign workers doing the evil deed.

I can’t speak for any other neighborhood in the city but at least on my street, no McCain Palin or Bush Cheney signs have been stolen in the past two elections. And that seems about right. I think we liberals are worried about more important stuff than trying to “control the message” by stealing someone’s yard sign.

I’m replacing my yard sign today. Like last election, I will probably replace every one sign stolen with two new ones. So a warning to the yard sign thieves: keep stealing them, and you will breed more. Remember: every yard sign represents a donation to the Obama campaign. So keep it up.

And I have another warning: I have three large dogs who leave very messy land mines all over the yard. And I’m not cleaning it up until after election day. So if you’re walking around my front yard in the dark, you’re likely to pay for it on the bottom of your shoes.