You know what’s getting airplay, what’s stuck in my head. Oh go ahead, sing it:
"You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel. You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch."
Who doesn’t crack a smile at composer Albert Hague’s Dr. Seuss ditty? Scrooge aside, Christmas malice doesn’t get any more fun than the green guy whose "soul is full of gunk," Mr. Grinch.
Fiction is one thing. Theft is another. We laugh when the Grinch steals Christmas. Nothing funny happened at Edna McGonigal’s Machias-area home Saturday night.
McGonigal, 79, had an adult-size tricycle stolen from her fenced yard. The grandmother of 13 would be angry enough if the trike was hers. It isn’t. It belongs to her 14-year-old granddaughter, Shei, who is mentally and physically disabled.
"She spends every other weekend with us," said McGonigal, a widow who lives with her son, Jim, Shei’s father. "The tricycle is for her to ride when she’s here.
"She got up Sunday morning and said to her brother, ‘Let’s go ride our bikes.’ They went out, and the fence had been cut," McGonigal said.
Whoever took the trike ignored Jim’s bicycle, worth $600.
McGonigal called 911 and was told by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office that she’d get paperwork in the mail. Her son has put up fliers, but McGonigal isn’t optimistic about getting the trike back. They hope to replace it after Christmas.
"It was an expensive one. Her mother bought it for her when she was just learning to get around by herself. It has 22-inch wheels; it’s not a kid’s toy," she said.
Shei’s parents are divorced, and the girl and her brother Tony, 11, spend every other weekend with McGonigal.
Shei, she said, is hurt by the loss.
"She’s 14, but mentally she is like a 5-year-old," McGonigal said. "I can’t understand why someone would take something that isn’t worth a whole lot of money, but is worth a whole lot of love."
At birth, she said, Shei wasn’t expected to live six months. "Then they said maybe a year, then maybe six years. She’s made liars out of everybody," McGonigal said.
Her son, she said, told his daughter, "Honey, a real bad person took your trike. And she said, ‘Why would they do that, Dad?’ " McGonigal said.
Why, indeed?
Shei’s tricycle is blue, with a big basket. If you spot it, notice the rider. A green guy? A Grinch? Maybe not, but a vile one nonetheless.
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