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The infamous “antique thief” was detained by WUPD last night at around 10 p.m. He was caught in an apartment on the 6000 block of Kingsbury Ave. hugging a vintage mahogany set, with channel knobs and all, a real antique, trying to hoist himself out of the second story window. An associate had installed a zipline allowing him to flee to the adjacent property where the associate was detained later that night in his living room watching “World War II in Color” and eating squash and beef soup.
Upon questioning, police deduced that he was the same convict behind the recent thefts of an old sewing machine, a Civil War rifle, and an entire water mill—all on separate occasions but within a span of 45 minutes.
Other stolen items were found in the possession of the antique thief—such as a typewriter and a Metrecal can (diet foods from the ‘50s that targeted women’s bodily insecurities)—who himself possessed no forms of identification but went by the alias “John Stuart Mill,” and argued throughout the investigation about how his thievings maximized utilities. When I informed him that he had misunderstood the central incentive of utilitarianism, he exploded into a polemic that I was a God-fearing deontologist with no understanding of utilitarianism, and that this was clear in that I violated the Harm Principle when I used my authority to unjustifiably hurt his feelings. When I asked whether he’d like to make an additional argument from authority that, since he is John Stuart Mill himself, he knows utilitarianism better than anyone. To this he replied that he was not John Stuart Mill but John Stuart Mill. To which I replied with a series of psychoanalytic insinuations which may be summarized with the question: “so what are you really stealing here?”
That got him up.
He had the police undo his handcuffs, and we exchanged a few blows, until the cops realized it was not as exciting as they’d hoped for, but rather a pathetic spectacle of grappling and elbow-jerking. They asked themselves why they’d let a journalist into the investigation room in the first place, as this was entirely against policy–since it is far easier to pressure suspected criminals into making false confessions if no one is around to expose you for it–so eventually they had the handcuffs on both of us, but not until I landed an awesome uppercut on his jaw. The face of the antique thief, bruised and bleeding, looked more like rotten fruit by the time I was done with him.
I was unscathed and remained very handsome as my mother insists.
The coppers forced me to leave the room, but I was allowed to watch the remainder of the interrogation through a peephole if I paid a small fee and gave one good compliment. (I stole for the sheriff a line by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “You‘re the only girl I’ve seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.”) There is little to say about the remainder of the investigation, as I missed most of it fucking the sheriff.
The antique thief was sentenced to death.
