It's Times Like This I Wish We Were the Nefarious World Running Order That Some People Think We Are!!!

It was your run of the mill lodge night.

The vibe was good.

We were continuing our back breaking, degree after degree, pace of bringing in new Brothers which we have been doing constantly this year. ( I know, I know,... whoa is us). Three of our newest brothers were getting prepared to be passed to the degree of Fellowcraft. All was going fine until one after another we realised we were going to be about three officers short. This degree was thrown together in a very short time and an email was the only notice sent to the Craft to set us to labor. Important note for W.M's and others who only communicate via the Web; not everyone checks their email as regularly as others so if you need to set something in motion in a short time it would behoove you to use that old fashioned instrument of communication called the phone!

I digress. Anyway, we were all eating our meal before the degree or setting up the lodge. Innocently doing what we do all the time, while a reprehensible act occurred outside the lodge in our parking lot. I don't know who exactly was the first to discover this but someone stepped outside and noticed that someones car had been broken into! That someone was one of our young Entered Apprentices about to be passed to the degree of Fellowcraft. His car window was smashed to bits and some jerk had grabbed his GPS from the front seat. One by one we all spilled out into the parking lot to gawk at the scene while the police were called.

Our direct Past Master and Chaplain is a detective in our local police department, but of course on this evening he was one of the missing officers of the night. While we all waited patiently for a policeman to show up, and I repeat patiently...., and the hour to open the lodge had long passed so it was decided to postpone the degree for a week because we did not want to go home in the wee hours of the morning.

A long time ago someone broke into my car and stole my entire CD collection, which numbered in the hundreds at the time, and I can remember the feeling of violation that accompanies such an occurrence. Our newest brother handled the whole thing very well and maintained his composure the entire time and even joked about how the moron who did this smash and grab act luckily did not see the $2000.00 camera in the back seat.

If we could, I would love to set our imperial forces upon the evil aggressor who perpetrated the ugly act, but unfortunately we don't really control the world!?!