I've been planning a convenience store robbery. Oh, that doesn't mean I'm actually going to do it any more than I'm going to ask the Murky River Killer to walk me home on a dark night. But planning a robbery is kind of fun, like planning the perfect murder, except you don't have to hide the body. For decades Agatha Christie earned a good living devising murders. Planning the perfect robbery isn't quite as glamorous, but it's hard to see those amazing shows of moronic thieves trying to rob convenience stores without thinking, "Man, is that ever dumb, I can do better than that!"

I mean really--right in front of a security camera some guy eager to improve his lot in life hoists a baseball bat to break into a grocery store for a pack of cigarettes. He slams it into the window, cracks the security plastic, and beans himself--knocking himself out cold on the rebound. Later the police take his statement on a charge of attempted robbery and the guy denies everything and says he was having dinner with Prince Charles. When they write down that the window was damaged by a rock, he corrects them and says, "It wasn't a rock; it was a baseball bat." Then he files a lawsuit against the store for his head injury.

Just as surprising is the woman who walks into a store, puts her purse on the counter and robs a cashier at gunpoint. He hands her the money and then she demands chocolate bars too. So he hands her chocolate bars and she juggles the chocolate and cash worth about $32 and runs out of the store, leaving her purse behind, containing $82 and her driver's license.

Then there were two guys who tried to steal an ATM machine by driving through a store window after hours. They lassooed it with a long chain that was hooked to the vehicle. When they gunned their truck in reverse to get away, they smashed right into the police car that responded to the silent alarm.

This other guy tries to rob a store with a safe-till system, where there's never more than $20 worth of change in the cash register. I guess they skipped reading in Store Robbing School because the security system was clearly announced in big red letters on a sign on the door. When he discovers only $18 in the till, the enterprising robber ties up the sales clerk and works the counter for a couple of hours to get more money. On his way out, he unties the clerk and says, "Here, take this!" and hands him the gun. "What are you giving me this for?" asks the bewildered clerk, and the guy running out of the store says, "I don't want to violate parole by having a gun!" So the clerk goes after him with the gun and corners him until the police arrive.

I don't know how much the thieves get from convenience store robberies, but I suspect it's rarely more than a couple of hundred dollars. I don't know how much jail time they get either, but I've heard that their cousins, the bank robbers, can be sentenced to 13 years for an average take of only $3,000 to $4,000.

I had almost finished planning the perfect store robbery when I happened across some statistics for white collar crime. Our society apparently has different penalties for crooks who rob banks from the outside, and CEOs and employees who rob them from the inside. Computer embezzlers and savings & loan crooks help themselves to millions of dollars without ever having to drive through store windows or use dangerous weapons. Unlike outside robberies in which the thief is often caught with the money red-handed, embezzled millions tend to mysteriously disappear. Juries are quick to hand down a guilty verdict after seeing a security video of a guy tying up a clerk at gunpoint, but reluctant to believe the cold, hard facts displayed in spreadsheets and convict a guy who starred on last week's episode of Lifestyles of the Filthy Rich and Famous.

OK, so I exaggerated about the moronic thieves, but not very much; these stories are about 92% true, I just changed the details a little to protect the human race from intergalactic embarrassment during alien visitations. The SETI research is a scientific project that sends signals out to communicate with intelligent species in other parts of the galaxy, but I'm worried that intelligent life forms might miss the SETI signals and intercept some of the dumb robber TV broadcasts instead. If they watch these criminals in action, they could assume we're all short on gray matter, and designate humans in their galactic guide as experimental animals, like laboratory rats and guinea pigs.

After learning that white collar crime has the benefits of more money and fewer job hazards, I changed my mind about planning the perfect robbery, and switched to planning the perfect computer crime. An intellectual exercise, remember. I might even save the human race some day if we get caught by space invaders, since they'll hopefully upgrade our status from lab rats to lap dogs. At least then we won't have to run the rat race in endless circles in little metal cages.

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