He lurks in the shadows, hiding his smirking green face behind lamp posts and hedges, parked cars and garbage cans, his mean, beady eyes fixed on the delivery truck.
Before we can say “Whoville,” the Grinch has stolen our Christmas – or rather, Christmas gifts the delivery person left on our porch.
‘Tis the season for giving – and, unfortunately, taking. With more of us ordering online and having items delivered to the door, the Grinch appears to have shifted operations from Whoville. If he has not yet made an appearance in your neighbourhood, he will soon be coming to a porch near you.
YouTube videos abound, showing victims taking revenge. There is one making the rounds of a man with an assault rifle telling a thief to put down the parcel he has just grabbed – well worth a chuckle or two for those of us who are amused by images of a thief apologizing profusely while slinking backwards at warp speed.
We may laugh at the images of the Grinch and his minions staggering off with gift-wrapped boxes of used kitty litter, maybe a carefully packaged dead skunk or even a large bag of confetti. We may devote hours to coming up with ideas for smellier and nastier “gifts” to leave for the thieves.
Simpler is better. Most delivery people and letter carriers have stories about folks who get a little too creative, opting to protect items left on their porch by chaining up Fido, in all his viciously territorial, befanged glory, there. They seem to forget that while no one will dare steal stuff from that porch, no one will dare leave anything on it, either.
The fact is, though, a lot of people are losing valuables to the Grinch, especially this time of year.
Short of installing surveillance cameras, and/or a lockable parcel box, the most effective anti-theft measure would probably be arranging with a neighbour to pick up parcels left at our door – or having them delivered to a location where someone will be home.
Fond as he has become of swiping gifts from porches, the Grinch has no problem entering an unlocked car, enticed by bags and packages from all his favourite stores. Just for laughs, he may take the car, too.
Most thieves who take things from unlocked cars are not professionals. They, like the Grinch, are opportunists. They see something tempting, they take. Simple measures like covering parcels with a blanket, locking the car and putting the keys in your pocket may not deter a pro, but they work well with the Grinch. He will slither off, looking for easier pickings.
The Grinch likes to hedge his bets. His holiday plans include more than swiping parcels off porches and from unlocked cars. The despicable creature is not above taking advantage of people’s warm-hearted generosity this time of year and seeking “charitable donations” under false pretenses.
The Grinch knows that many charities depend on donations people make at Christmas. Whether requests for support come in the form of emails, letters, signs on donation jars, or someone going door-to-door, there are more of them now than at any other time of year.
To stop the Grinch and his minions from siphoning off money that should be going to bona fide charities, people should, in the spirit of the season, make a list and check it twice. In other words, we need to decide ahead of time what we are going to give, and to which charities. We need to check identification of representatives of those charities, and do our homework before we give anything.
The temptation to make an impulse donation is strong, especially when people have garlands of tinsel sparkling in their eyes and the scent of gingerbread wafts through the air. However, we need to be on the alert – the Grinch has been known to don disguises and can talk a good line when he sets his mind to it. Time is the donor’s friend and the Grinch’s enemy – think before we give.
We must keep the Grinch and his nasty ways from tarnishing or stealing our Christmas.
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Pauline Kerr is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Midwestern Newspapers. She can be reached at pkerr@midwesternnewspapers.com.
