Do people steal more at night? That’s what I’ve always thought. Maybe my assumption comes from years of reading mysteries and thrillers, in which most skullduggery seems to occur under cover of darkness.
At any rate, someone, or several someones, just stole the catalytic converter from the spare truck at my office. As you can see in the photo, they simply sliced through the exhaust line and made off with their loot. From what I’ve read, a really good thief can remove the converter in about 60 seconds. Slower thieves can take up to 10 minutes.
Why? #$@% it! Why?
Because of the rare metals in the converter. Catalytic converters contain rare metals, such as platinum, rhodium and palladium. These are necessary for the oxidation process of carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide. So I’ve read. I remember basically nothing from high school chemistry class. All I remember is, once, igniting the experiment table on fire once, much to the mixed horror and hilarity of my lab partner Sherri.
And, of course, rare metal prices are high these days.
This is why I’m in favor of Congress passing a bill allowing all households to obtain and keep trained attack-skunks or similar nocturnal animals that would be happy chomping on thief ankles at night. Or spraying them with their skunk chemicals. I could go for a well-trained pack of feral chipmunks roaming the property at night. Hungering and thirsting for rare metal thieves.
Have you seen what the cost is of installing a new catalytic converter? Ouch. That’s life in sunny California, the year 2022. Don’t even get me started on Union Pacific and what’s going on along the train tracks of Los Angeles.