Criminals are thriving while the law abiding now
have to get their Spam from a locked case!
The news has been predictably bad of late even
for a middle-aged white man. Wars and rumors of war, natural
disasters, collusion, poorly executed advertorial, failing
infrastructure, the left getting breathless about the right, the
right getting indignant about the left, etc. I usually wake up,
read, and feel… bored. Everything so… predictable.
This morning, though, I woke up and read a story I never saw
coming. Something so wonderful that I’ve read it three times so far
and will now share it with you. By way of quick background, anyone
who has ever spent time in Hawaii knows the island’s love affair
with the canned ham product known as Spam. It is used in many
dishes. My personal favorite is Spam musubi from Foodland. Well,
now it is being restricted like a class 1 drug. Let’s read again
together in the famed Washington
Post!
Last month in the Pearl City community on Oahu, Safeway
customer Arlene Sua watched as a man suddenly grabbed eight cases
of Spam and headed for the door. She thought “‘Okay, this isn’t
real. No, he’s not going to take it, no, no,” she told KHON
TV.
But it was real. The man took off with the Spam and
disappeared.
Elsewhere on the island at about the same time, three women
loaded up shopping carts at a Long’s drugstore with 18 cases of —
you guessed it — Spam. They made a rush for the exit. Fortunately,
an alert customer, Kurt Fevella, saw the attempted heist in
progress, stationed himself at the door on Spam patrol and stopped
them in their tracks. They shoved the carts toward at him and took
off, Fevella told KITV4.
A shop at a downtown mall wasn’t so lucky. The Honolulu
Police Department is now offering a $1,000 reward for a man (and an
apparent accomplice) who entered a store on Oct. 3, grabbed a case
of Spam and punched a security guard who attempted to stop
him.
Police reported that the thief “fled in an unknown
direction.”
These Spam snatchers are not hungry people desperate for
Spam, said Tina Yamaki, president of the Retail Merchants of
Hawaii. They are most likely part of a Spam black market that’s
taking off in a state where the demand for Spam knows no
bounds.
“It’s a staple,” Yamaki told The Washington Post.
The thefts have proliferated to the point that some
businesses are putting Spam in plastic cases under lock and key,
she said, along with the more conventional and more expensive
shoplifting targets such as electronics, Gillette Power Fusion
razor refills and, as it happens, canned corned beef, also popular
in Hawaii.
To buy a can of Spam, you have to ask a salesperson to
retrieve it.
Yamaki thinks Spam has become a form of currency,
particularly for drug addicts in need of quick cash. With Spam
selling for roughly $2.50 per 12-ounce can (depending on where in
Hawaii you look), a thief who paid nothing for an 8-pack or a case
of 12 can turn a decent profit underselling the retailers from whom
they stole.
Brilliant! The story goes on to talk about how and why the Spam
black market thrives and what it means for the Hawaiian economy.
You really must finish and you will be smiling all day too.
But real quick, what is the last thing you have shop lifted?
