A Penny For Your Thoughts

My dad called me into his bedroom one Saturday morning and handed me a butter knife and told me to dig a penny out of a lamp socket.  I was twelve at the time and the socket was on the north wall of his room and four feet off the floor and looked like a candle stick.

I walked over to it and peered into the opening in the top where the special flame-shaped bulb used to be.  There did appear to be a scorched copper Lincoln-head cent down there.  

Police Ground Power Pole

Finally, a good use for Photo Radar.

For two years a forty year-old Polish man was siphoning electrical power from a speed camera near his house in Mragowo, a town north of Warsaw.  Piotr W. tapped into the ticket camera using an extension cord buried two feet underground in December of 2007.  Seems he was powering his neighbor, also. 

Cops tumbled to the theft when unusually high electricity bills were noticed.  An officer sent to investigate discovered the buried cable and followed it right to Piotr's home.

--Two years of high electricity bills!  My wife would have been all over that the first month-- 

Piotr and girlfriend have to pay a fine and re-imburse the city for $1,200 worth of juice.  They'll avoid jail time.  It is not mentioned what became of the neighbors.

Read the article at The Newspaper:  Polish Underground