Community Post

Have You Seen Me?

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

I know I’m not going to make the news. I know no one is going to start an international rescue operation to help bring me home. I know most people will look at my picture and believe I’m not worth finding.

I’m just a garden stone. I cost less than $2.00 at Lowes.

But I have a home. Someone spent time and effort choosing me and installing me in a wall where I happily protected a garden and retained dirt and did my job to the best of my ability. I didn’t ask for much. I didn’t want for anything.

And then someone stole me and four of my friends. They stole me in the middle of the night. I’m somewhere now, probably dark and scared. Four of my friends are missing as well. Where are we? Can you help find us?

The worst part? Now whenever my owners walk, they see new stones replacing sections of their neighbors’ walls where perhaps other stones were stolen and replaced. Now, whenever my owners walk, they suspiciously eye a new paving installation made of many different-sized and different-shaped and different-colored retaining wall stones. Can they replace me with new stones? Will the new stones get taken as well?

My owners withstand the usual “disappearance” of items they’ve accidentally left outside over night. They know they’re paying one of the prices of living in the city. But I’ve always considered myself part of the property. What will disappear next? Trees? The front porch? What is safe?

Please help find me. Or, if you’ve also had part of your retaining wall stolen, please let me know so I won’t feel so alone.

0 thoughts on “Have You Seen Me?

  1. In our daily walks through our neighborhood, we often see walls with missing pavers. We also have had some “go missing”. It sucks. Stealing sucks. We have even had a $2 bag of mulch go missing. People who steal suck.

  2. there is obviously a problem going on here…suspicious! and i’m sorry.

    also, great post, pretty pretty princess. as i writer i appreciate your creativity!

  3. If you would like to visit your missing pavers, might we suggest a stroll down E Columbia between 23rd and 24th?

  4. I think what is really remarkable here is the fact your paver stones have a narrative voice. In all the years I have been alive, I have never read anything written by a paver stone. It’s nice to have some insight into the mind of a paver stone. I never knew what an anxious object it could be.

    Just a thought, but if a paver stone can feel, think, and compose neighborhood news pieces maybe that paver stone can also walk and relocate.

  5. Unchain these bonds! Run free, little paver bricks! Too long have you been submitting yourselves to the slavery that is the retention wall!

    I have had a vision of the future! A day when all masonry will rise up, in an earthen cacophony to match the fall of the Tower of Babel! Beware, beware! There will come a day when all fences and structures are once again hewn from wood. Prepare yourselves, for the Terra-Cottalypse!

  6. in our driveway 2 weekends ago……in the middle of the day by a truck…its multitude of buddies dearly miss their presence and would like them back asap.

  7. If we find our lost pavers, are we allowed to borrow them back? Does anyone know what the socially acceptable paver protocol is? Has our neighborhood starting playing Musical Pavers?

    I know there is a joke about being “two pavers short of a load” just waiting in the wings out there.