I don't know if swiping a road sign is a misdemeanor, felony or something else. I did it once for a noble reason. We lived in a rural area where there were only 4 homes on our road, so traffic there was very little. We did have a neighbor, however, who would come around the corner going eleventyhundred miles an hour. I don't know how much of that was really a problem except that one of our dogs got killed and some ducks on different occasions. We had an irrigation ditch across the road from our house. This ditch was big enough that a neighbor boy, for instance, along with his friend could ride their ten speed bikes in it, and be about up to their chests in the water, and then they would throw rocks at you if you looked at them. The road between our house and the ditch was narrow. The ducks would cross the road from our yard to go for a little swim when there was water in the ditch. For some reason, ducks and geese like to relax in the middle of the road. It's flat, probably warm on their chilled webbed feet, and conveniently close to the water in case they wanted to take another dip. If a car did happen to come onto the road, the ducks would stand up and waddle out of the way. Well, when a car came around the corner at a speed of the aforementioned, those poor fat little ducks just couldn't get up in time, let alone waddle to safety. I think one of the problems is that their eyes are on the side of their head. Sure they can see two different directions at once, but if danger is right in front of their beaks, well...
Anyway, my sister, who is one year younger than me, and I decided what we really needed was a duck crossing sign. We would post it to give warning of the pending danger to our ducks.
We really didn't mind our ducks, even though in the winter we couldn't roll a stinking snowball without chunks of greenish-brown duck poop being embedded in it. Needless to say, we never had a white snowman. Let's not even talk about barefoot summers. Since we felt like the sign had to be official, we decided we needed a real yield sign. We would repaint it and put a silhouette of a mama duck and a trail of baby ducks in tow.
Our plan was just to pick up a fallen sign. We must have seen loads of signs laying round to think it was just a matter of picking one up. Well, there weren't any to be found. But finally, we did find one. The only problem was, it was still in use. It was a few miles from our house in a fairly remote area that really didn't need the sign to be there anyway. Plus it was so loose in the ground that it was leaning, and they would need to replace it sooner or later. We wobbled it back and forth with ease, but we just couldn't get that sucker out. We had to leave it.
In the meanwhile, I was at a very happy time in my life. Craig was on a mission, and I was free. I was mingling amongst lots of people, and at the top of my game as a hairstylist. And I was thin. I worked at a salon and had a nice big clientèle that kept me busy. I had two guy friends just a year or two younger than me who worked at the other end of the block at Payson's best pizza place. During my downtime, I would walk over and hang out with them. They would pull up a chair for me in the kitchen, right next to the recipes hanging on the wall, and we would chat and laugh it up until my boss discovered I had escaped the salon again and she would call the pizza place asking me to come back to work. Oh those were good times!! The Def Leppard was loud and the Vanillaroma car freshener was strong! I would give those two friends free haircuts and hair gel, and they gave me... nothing, actually. I had to pay for my own dang pizza.
Well, I told these two fella's about the plan to get a sign, told them where it was and asked if they were game to help swipe it. Because of our immaturity, of course they were in on this illegal venture, and we decided to see a movie afterwards. By the way, I never realized this was actually illegal. I knew it wasn't right, I made sure it was dark when we stole the sign, and I knew we would get in trouble, but illegal never really crossed my mind. I don't know why, because it's CLEARLY illegal.
The night we decided to take action finally came. I hung out at the pizza joint until dark-thirty. It was summertime, so it must have been pretty late by the time it actually got dark. The three of us loaded into my little Ford Ranger. I had to sit in the middle instead of driving my own awesome truck, so the two guys didn't have to sit next to each other. Guys are paranoid. We got to the sign and dang, even with two strapping guys, we just couldn't get that sign to come out. They gave up, but when I became severely disappointed, for the ducks, and my whining turned in to pleading we did finally get that beast out. We threw the sign into the back of the truck and headed to my house to drop it off. The length of a Ford Ranger truck bed is about 7 feet long. Sign posts are really long if you can just imagine how deep they're buried. That sign post hung at least 6 feet out the back of my truck. But it was so dark, no one would see it. We got to within two thirds of a mile of my house when we noticed a Sheriff parked on the side of the road only a couple of hundred feet further than where we needed to turn. We freaked. If he turned to look when we turned, he would see the post, with the clumps of dirt and weeds and no red safety flag attached. But it was dark. We got to our house, with no lights following us, and we were relieved to dump it into the yard.
After watching Major League, it was a little after midnight, and I had a curfew. I left Payson to head home. As I was approaching the 4 way stop in Benjamin, I noticed eight (I counted them) Sheriffs vehicles parked there at the intersection forming a road block. I slowed down to stop and four Sheriffs ran out into the intersection to block my way. They had rifles. I am not kidding. One came to talk to me and asked where I was from and where I was going. I told him I was just trying to get home. I was already pretty naive, had never been tangled up in the law, and incidentally had just committed a crime, so I was pretty scared. He let me go home, and I found out the next day there had been a shooting and a body found. They were looking for a shooter, but it ended up being a suicide. It was only when I found out about the shooting, that I realized none of it was about me. I said I was naive. I never did tell my family about the incident for fear of my dad, who was mad about the stolen sign being in his yard. We never did make the duck crossing. I think securing yellow paint was a problem. I didn't know what ever happened to the sign, but I think I'll say we dumped it back where we found it, because that is a safe answer that will not bring a fine or jail time.
