People keep asking me why I haven’t been writing and why they haven’t seen any articles from me, lately. Well, I’ve been wicked busy and when I’m busy it’s hard to find time to write and then I have to be in the mood to write. The stars have not been in alignment.

That doesn’t mean that I’m just going along paying no attention to anything. No sir. Not me. I’m constantly researching. When I find some information that I think could be a story, I bookmark it. I have lots of bookmarks. Most of them get deleted when I ask myself, “What was I thinking when I bookmarked that?”

The ones that survive sit on my computer until the time that I’m not all drove up and go back and look them over to see if there’s an article in there somewhere. The time is now.

All the national news is just too much for me. National politics right now is the most bizarre I can remember. While all that’s happening, there’s one thing after another that’s going to kill us all or make us broke, or both. Then, there’s the stuff I read and save.

Anything you undertake, it’s important to have a plan. I’m a big believer in the concept of not getting analysis paralysis and over-thinking things, but you need to have the basics in place before you start a project in order to have a successful outcome.

Take the case of Tatiana Gagnon. Before I lay out the facts, I need to state that all of this is alleged. Alleged is a word that all the reporters use I guess to cover their rear ends from a law suit, but this had already been published in “The Bangor” so here we go.

It seems that Tatiana, or somebody, decided to break into the Hometown Mobil down in Lebano, Southern Maine, where there’s more money than up here in the rest of Maine.

Of course, they would keep that money in a safe, so the safe would be an attractive target. Well the break-in and stealing of the safe went well in the middle of the night, but then there was a challenge. You see, safes are called that because you can’t get into them easily and evidently Tatiana hadn’t included getting into the safe in her plan. So, she decided to do what any reasonable person would do in the middle of the night near where a burglary alarm had just gone off. She decided to drive back and forth over the safe to try to open it with her car and get all that Southern Maine cash.

If she had Googled “opening safes” she would not have found driving back and forth over them with your car as a search option.

Sadly, along with the safe not opening, it became lodged under the car. Of course all of this commotion attracted the attention of folks who would normally be sleeping and they called the authorities.

Here’s where the crack police work came into place. They had been to the store and saw the door smashed and safe missing and just as soon as the call came in about the car driving back and forth over the safe, they knew they had their lady.

Well, Tatiana got away from the safe, but there were clues and pretty soon they found her and she thought she would outrun the police. She had had so much success with the burglary, why not? That ended with what the police call, “the precision immobilization technique maneuver.” For those of you unaware of what that is, they ran her off the road.

So, what have we learned here? If you’re going to steal a safe (and I don’t recommend that. A job would be a better option, long term) you need to know how to get into the safe. If you don’t know how to get into a safe, put it in your trunk and try not to attract too much attention to yourself. Please remember that all Tatiana’s actions are alleged.

Then, there’s the Roomba. I have one. I bought a shop model made for cleaning up your work area, not the household version. I thought it would be neat to open a beer and watch the Roomba clean the garage. There were complications. With the Roomba, not the beer, and nothing to do with the Roomba, itself. I didn’t take into consideration all the things in the garage that confused the Roomba.

Apparently, folks set these things to do their business (you’ll get the brilliance of this later) in the middle of the night. Everyone is sleeping, it’s all good.

Well. Jesse Newton didn’t take into consideration that he had a puppy and puppies poop. Let’s let Jesse tell us what happened: “It will be on your floorboards. It will be on your furniture legs. It will be on your carpets. It will be on your rugs. It will be in your kids’ toy boxes. If it’s near the floor, it will have poop on it. Those awesome wheels, which have a checkered surface for better traction, left 25 feet poop trails all over the house.”

He named it “poopocalypse.” Seems like an awesome name for an alternative rock band, to me.

Anyway, Jesse drew a diagram of the poop trail and he’s upset with the Roomba folks. Also, Becca who is a neuroscientist has had a similar problem. Becca did not want to give her last name for the article, but she was fine with naming her cats, Aretha, Burt, Merry, and Pippin.

Five to ten times in the past two years, there’s been a problem. I suspect Pippin is the culprit, but have no evidence. Becca Nolastname says the Roomba works great until it encounters a stray cat turd.

Well, if you have cats, you’re going to have stray cat turds and if your Roomba is set to go off when you’re not home or sleeping, that stray cat turd will be tracked all over the apartment.

The Roomba guy says he gets lots of calls about problems like this. Really? I would say to neuroscientist Becca, after one or two times, you need to take some action. If it happens five to 10 times in two years, you’re really not paying attention. To poor Jesse, maybe he should just vacuum during the day until his puppy is housebroken. As for Tatiana, well.

All of the above mentioned folks are only alleged to have done what is reported. Except for the cats. Aretha, Burt, Merry and Pippin? They’re guilty as Hell. Just look into their eyes.

Bill Packard lives in Union and is the founder of BPackard.com.  He is a speaker, author, small business coach and consultant.