The great 2008 gas caper

It was late, 11:15 or so, when I heard the first noise that caused me to suspect something foul was afoot. Everyone but me had gone to bed; I was carving a piece of wood while listening to a debate from the House of Commons on c-span. My thoughts drifted to some sort of armadilloish malfeasance making its way through the underside of the estate, or ratty trailer to be precise… Then there was the definitive sound of someone sniffing just outside the door. I froze in place. Looking around to locate implements of destruction, my eyes drifted from the carving knife in my hand, to the compound bow on the wall, to the various walking sticks I’ve carved by the door, to the nine shot 380 on the entertainment center. The choice seemed fairly obvious. The biggest problem was getting to the gun without rousing suspicion from whoever it was outside my door. I tried to convince myself that it must be someone coming to visit at a strange hour, but being the most hated and made fun of people in the county narrowed that option down to nil. Then I heard the deciding factor; someone was on the Kawasaki mule that had belonged to my Dad… Without further contemplation I took the gun out of the “safety” pack and stomped to the door, pulling the slide back as I made my way. In the split second I stood before the door I made an executive decision. Buffered by the mounting hatred I now felt for anyone that would attempt to take what doesn’t belong to them (we are all guilty of it in some form or another, but at my age I have no patience for thievery). Stealth wasn’t called for. I kicked the door open and pointed the gun toward the mule. The sight I was faced with was two of our Latino brethren, here legally I’m sure, with one of my five gallon gas cans in hand and a siphoning hose hanging out of the mule. My usual suave demeanor took over at this point…”What the fuck are you doing?” The one with the can threw it in my direction, turned and ran, the other guy just ran. I yelled out “freeze!”… It just came out… Then I fired into the ground; oddly enough they both stopped running. I ran up to them and told them not to move. I didn’t have the phone to call the police. Ok, what do I do now? I asked them if they spoke English, they replied in the affirmative and then I went into a long-winded diatribe about taking things from people that worked for it, I guess my knee jerk reaction was to bore them to death. I asked them repeatedly why they were doing this and the broken English responses were full of “I’m sorry” and “We needed it”. They needed it. Just Damn.
“I suppose I don’t need it, I suppose I just bought it for nothing, I suppose you felt it was alright by me for you to sneak up here in the middle of the night and just get whatever you felt like you made need.”
“No, no, no.”
My disgust at this point forced me to make them get up and walk back to the porch. I told them to sit down, my wife was awake and outside by then asking what was happening. I asked her if she would get the phone and call the police. I then noticed that the can he threw at me was on its side and leaking gas out of it. I told them to give me twenty bucks for the gas. They fumbled around and handed over two tens. Fifteen minutes later the police arrived, I tucked the gun away as they were making their way down the driveway. The police gave the usual speeches about letting them handle things like this and how I could’ve been hurt or worse over gas. They even became surly when I wouldn’t hand over my gun, but they let it go when it became clear I wasn’t going to comply. They took the two guys away after asking them a few questions, by this time I just wanted this over and all of them gone. It was very interesting to me that I got the more severe dressing down...Needless to say I didn’t get very much sleep after all that, if this year gets any better I just may explode.