Vagabondish Citizen of the Week, Sleepy Supervillains Edition

2009-11-09 COTWSleepy
© frank wouters

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The sun is preparing to set on yet another week of failed sobriety – hello, weekend – and so it’s time for our weekly Friday self-esteem boost. We obviously do this primarily for you the reader, though there’s also a bit of self-interest involved. Some time around Sunday morning we’re going to be able to look at something and say to ourselves “well, at least we’re not that guy.” Ergo Vagabondish’s Citizen Of The Week.

Your contestants this week: the East Tennessee man who passed out in a ditch with a loaded shotgun and a machete, the robbers who spent the night in a garage filled with their stolen goods, the Chinese burglar who was convinced to take a nap by his victim, and the Aussie burglar who feel asleep while picking the lock of a Perth shopping mall. The money line from that last story: “fell asleep… with the wire still in his hands and also in the door.”

It was a close call between the Southern guy – whom the judges appreciated for the shotgun plus moonshine plus ditch visual – and the international jewel thief-level criminal who thought “well this is a nice lady I’m robbing, why not take a nap?” Ultimately though, our panel will always reward incandescent stupidity more than lazy stereotyping, so the Chinese gentleman it is:

A woman in China convinced a burglar that he looked very tired and should take a nap, promising him to give some money once he woke up. The woman tied the intruder with a rope when he fell asleep and phoned the police. A Qingyuan county court in eastern Liaoning province sentenced the accused to six years in prison for attempted robbery, the China Daily reported Thursday.

How tired must he have been to stay asleep while he was being tied up? And if you’re that tired, why not take a nap beforehand? We’ve been doing this Citizen of the Week series for almost a month now, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned is that you should never commit a felony without being well-rested and well-fed. Not too well-fed of course, because then you might get sleepy and end up like these morons.

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