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I can't decide whether to be relieved, disgusted, angry, or all of those at once.

Remember the gas dryer that had sprung a gas leak? We replaced it with a fine old dryer acquired for $10 on Craigslist, that Chris and I installed a couple weeks ago. Then we put the bad one back in the van to be taken away somewhere. We were hoping to be able to sell it for a few bucks for scrap.

After Chris drove around all over town one day and found no one willing to buy it, he listed it yesterday on Freecycle. This morning, he took it out of the van and set it up in front of the garage. I saw it there when I left for work at 8:15ish.

At 10:00, he called to ask me whether I'd seen the dryer when I left. Sure, I said, it was right there.

"It's not there now." He'd thought maybe Tammie moved it. But no. Somewhere in that intervening hour and a half, someone stole our old dryer.

I can't help feeling like it ought to be a reportable crime. That I should call the police. But what are they going to do? "Well, what was its value?" "Nothing. It didn't work and we were giving it away."

All the thieves have really accomplished is to save us the trouble of helping some guy off Freecycle load it into his truck. And possibly, if they were to actually install it instead of (as is more likely) selling it for scrap, blowing themselves and their block to smithereens.

Still, I hate the idea that theft of possibly-valuable appliances has to be tolerated. How was anyone to know that the dryer was useless just from looking at its exterior?