Frasier Crane

I'm not so sure that the people involved in this crime caper down Alabama way are familiar with the word chutzpah. 

 chutz·pah /ˈho͝otspə,ˈKHo͝otspə/

It's an informal noun, originally Yiddish, meaning extreme self-confidence or audacity.

Which a certain 26-year-old seems to have plenty of, as he ALLEGEDLY called a wrecker service to ask them to pull a 70-ton crane out of the woods.

His woods? Apparently not. His crane? Definitely not.

So now the sheriff has him charged with stealing the crane.

The tow guy called the Chilton County Sheriff’s Office not so long ago, saying he had a call from a man from Clanton who claimed that someone had given him a crane, and he just needed someone to pull his gift out of the woods so he could sell it to the scrapyard.

This is the perfect gift for some people!

However, Mr Tow remembered having dragged that crane before, years ago, and sure as tarnation, the man on the phone was not the man who owned it back then, and darn the luck anyway, for the would-be new owner, who then attempted to make good his getaway by driving off in the crane itself (only to run afoul of a ditch.)

The hapless alleged crook has been in trouble before, as witness his new charges of probation violation and first-degree theft. There was no defense attorney listed in court records. You have to figure it's hard to find a Perry Mason to match up to this case.  

“We have worked a lot of theft cases over the years, but this one definitely takes first place in the heavyweight category,” Sheriff John Shearon’s office said in a statement, thanking the wrecker service.

We shouldn't be so tough on the man; he's only trying to better himself by going into the crane business. He just wants to get up in the world.