Not in Nanticoke!

My family has always taken great pride in its geographical isolation. We live in Nanticoke, a small town named by Native Americans in the distant past and not much more populated now than it was back then. Growing up, a multitude of life's greatest joys were inextricably bound to the the soil of Nanticoke. Childhood was carefree, for the most part. We children boasted--or I did, at least--that we were so far out in the middle of nowhere that we couldn't see any other habitations from our house. Our greatest trials were doing the dishes and weeding our allotted rows of the vegetable garden just outside our kitchen door. Life was good.

But oh, Nanticoke, land of free children (except when they are pulling weeds under the blazing summer sun), how you have been corrupted! How is it that you, the Unsullied Country, now bear the stain of criminal activity? Yes. Nanticoke has turned to the dark side.

You see, when I called home today to chat with my parents they told me a disturbing story. In the dead of night, around 1:00 in the morning, my mom woke to the sound of a door slamming just outside the house. My dad, perpetual Finder and Bearer of Gloom, Doom, and General Pessimism, quickly got up to check it out [you see, it could have been an arsonist, a murderer, or sundry other classes of criminals...]. He found nary hide nor hair of a lurker. He and mom returned to bed.

Cue sunlight. Morning breaks. Dad gets out of bed, goes outside to putter around as usual. Lo and behold, he finds the bottle of Tums that he habitually, hypochondriacally keeps in the family van out in the middle of the road! The middle of Nanticoke's pristine, criminal-free road! He walks over, inspects the bottle, picks it up. He then trudges slowly to the van and opens the door. Theft! Vandalism! His two metal coffee mugs have been stolen. What's worse, a raw egg has been smashed on the driver's seat. Yes. This is a true story. And it happened yesterday night in Nanticoke (oh, Nanticoke...).

The story doesn't even end there. My mom's car has been rifled through as well. A bag full of freshly-rolled pennies and nickels, waiting to be brought to the bank and exchanged for crisp bills (64 dollars' worth of crisp bills...) has been lifted.

Sixty-four dollars in pennies and nickels. Two travel mugs. A smashed egg. Tums.

Nanticoke is the new New York City.

[In all seriousness, though...how creepy is this?!]