Everyone needs a hobby: Thief caught with 450 pairs of high heels

Thief caught with 450 pairs of high heels

This one is worth reading for the comments that accompany it.  Some solid comedy, including a couple of shoe-based puns.  There's also some thought-provoking consideration on one of the journalistic failings in the story itself-- namely, if the suspect has no fixed address and no job, what are the circumstances behind his room rental (including the logistics of transferring such a massive shoe collection into it without raising some kind of alarm from the owner) and seeming ability to gain access to a hostess club?  Those places aren't cheap, you know.  We also need to know how they nabbed him.  Did he make a clumsy spectacle of himself, or did someone just happen to barge in on him in the act?

Information, please.  That's a journalist's job and you've only done yours halfway.

And while I don't condone theft, I do think everyone needs an outlet for his or her interests.  This guy is apparently very into high heels, and that by itself is great.  But he should have sought gainful employment so he could afford to buy shoes rather than stealing them.  You can buy used shoes online and in vintage clothing stores, and there must be other legitimate resources for people who share this hobby considering how many Google searches for Malin Ackerman's feet I come across when checking my blog's readership.  If this is your thing, I urge you to join the vast online network of high heel lovers and foot fetishists out there and keep things above board and legal.

Unless the stealing of the shoes was his real kick, in which case I believe I have the answer for him and others of a similar nature.  Sometimes it's the illicit act itself in relation to the object rather than the object itself that draws the active hobbyist.  Perhaps there's a market for fake shoe and panty thievery.  Set up a club or a shop, stock it with whatever clothing items fetishists like to steal, let them pay a monthly fee and satisfy their urges with totally legal "theft."  You can allow the customers to go through whatever scenario turns them on (hostess bar changing room, high school lockers, laundry hanging on a line), curtail crime and make a few bucks in the process.

How about it, venture capitalists?