Patty Pruitt has spent 15 years teaching local girls how to tie knots and build fires, only to realize she forgot to teach them the most vital Lubbock survival skill: how to defend a storage unit from a guy with a sledgehammer and a vendetta against Dutch ovens. In a classic Hub City “welcome to the neighborhood” moment, some enterprising individual knocked out the security cameras at a local storage facility and treated Pruitt’s unit like a free-for-all at an REI liquidation sale.
The haul included two kayaks, a boat (because Lubbock is famously a maritime paradise), six tents, and camp stoves. The thief even made off with Pruitt’s “check box,” a legendary kit she’s spent over a decade Curating. It’s a bold move to steal a Dutch oven from a Girl Scout leader—that’s a level of low-stakes villainy usually reserved for people who skip the line at the Raising Cane’s.
In a display of optimism that can only be described as “bless her heart,” Pruitt suggested that maybe the thief just really needed a tent. Sure, Patty. Nothing says “I’m just looking for a place to sleep” like hauling away a literal fleet of watercraft and two professional-grade camp grills. It’s the kind of logic you can only maintain if you haven’t spent enough time reading the Lubbock Police Department’s daily blotter.
Naturally, because this is Lubbock and we love a good redemption arc almost as much as we love property crime, the community swooped in. A GoFundMe raised nearly $2,000 to replace the gear, proving that while our local criminals are busy “procuring” outdoor equipment, our neighbors are still willing to open their wallets to ensure the next generation of scouts can still go get bitten by mosquitoes in June.
Is there anything more Lubbock than a group of people donating money to replace things that will almost certainly be stolen again the next time someone forgets to double-bolt a corrugated metal door?
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