So! I got home the other night to find an aluminum-bending machine and a case of aluminum in my backyard.
I am assuming that they were delivered there by the window-trimmer guy, who then ... got sick and had to leave? Got a call that his wife needed a ride and had to go pick her up? Forgot about daylight savings time ending and ran out of daylight?
Seriously, I have no idea, because all the equipment was there, but the windows still weren't trimmed.
And that aluminum-bending machine, also known as a break, runs upward of a grand.
You know, I live in a good neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure that even I wouldn't leave an easily-loaded-into-a-pickup-truck piece of equipment worth a thousand dollars just lying around.
Oh! And earlier this summer, when the surveyor guy was at the house (the surveyor dude who never did find the corner pins to my property, because evidently the entire neighborhood was laid out somewhat wonky, to the extent where, at one point, I shit you not, he was scratching his head and asking me, "Do you know if they ever moved that road?"), okay ... um .... where was I?
Oh yeah! The surveyor went to lunch and left his digital transit, a very expensive piece of surveying equipment, set up by the side of the road. Where anybody passing by could just scoop it up and drive away.
Then again, maybe it was how I was raised. My dad would have KILLED me if I had so much as left a bicycle out on the lawn overnight. Even today, I don't even leave the flippin' lawnmower out in the yard, although maybe I should, in hopes that someone actually WOULD steal the damn thing and then I could buy one that actually RUNS ...
Wait! Where was I again? Oh yeah! Do you leave steal-able stuff out in the open? Because now I'm starting to wonder if I'm some kind of non-trusting weirdo.
Oh! Oh! One more question! How do I know when to use "lay" and when to use "lie"? IT'S KILLING ME. I mean, I know that if you place something, you "lay" it down. But is the object then "laying" there or "lying" there? I CANNOT FIGURE IT OUT.
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I don't even like leaving the garbage bins out by the curb. Feels wrong. I'd put the avocado tree in the house if I could.
Librarian's tip for proper grammar: instead of "laying" or "lying", do what I do - get mad at them both and use "sitting" instead. They can go sit in the corner with "it's" and "they're" and think about what they did wrong, jerks.
English nerd to the rescue! Lay is something you do to another object (as you said--lay something on the table), but lie is something that is done to oneself (the cloth is lying on the table, I am lying on my side, etc.).
It gets really fun, though, because the past tense of lie is lay, not laid, which is the past tense of lay (I lay on my side yesterday, the cloth lay on the table, the chickens laid eggs).
As for the other stuff, yes, I think people were just not raised right. If you leave your stuff out, that means that you don't value it, so it might as well be gone. I would say that you should steal that stuff to make a point, but I imagine that the same people who were raised to respect their things were also raised to respect other people's things too.
But what about LAIN, Kate?! *sobbing*
I think I'll join Holly in using "sitting". Less heartache all the way around.
Oh, and I thought about selling the break and the transit on craigslist, but my conscience wouldn't let me do it. Plus, I probably would've gotten caught, so there's that.
With the lie / lay thing, I agree with this... http://web.ku.edu/~edit/lie.html.
Except in English English (and maybe not American English) one can "lay [someone] out", as it is what happens after one dies... without it being of a sexual nature.
And belongings? Yup, nobody has been brought up properly since we lot were brought up, obviously! We have a neighbour whose kids leave EVERYTHING in the front garden. I find myself tutting every time I pass.
I'm going to nick something one of these days, just to show them!
Leaving things out - if it's stolen, they get a brand new one, on YOUR homeowner's insurance. Who wouldn't like a new whatever, for free?
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