Last month, Louis Fowler filed a glowing review about Jabee’s Eastside Pizza House on NE 23rd, declaring out loud that it’s the best pizza in Oklahoma City and possibly the state.
In the piece, Louis marveled at the pizzeria’s unique pies and charcoal crust, the menu’s homage to OKC’s civil rights leaders, and the “evocative art that clung to the walls.”
You know, works of art like this badass boombox:
I guess Louis’s review reached a little too far and wide, because earlier this week, one of the metro’s dumbest thieves thought it would be a good idea to put on his nicest pair of work boots, waltz into the pizzeria that’s owned by a famous local musician with a large social media following, blankly stare directly into security cameras, and then swipe the work of art from a shelf on the pizza house’s walls.
Check this out:
As you can see, Jabee’s tweet – and the promise of up to $1,000 in rewards – quickly caught algorithmic winds and set sail through the OKC social media waters, putting the bone-headed thief who wasn’t even smart enough to at least wear a facemask while committing a crime front and center on everyone’s phone.
Before you could say “Back with another one of those block rockin' beats,” amateur sleuths, social media detectives, and pizza lovers from all across town quickly identified the alleged criminal mastermind.
I’m not identifying him by name because charges haven’t been filed, but according to facial recognition software, the perp appears to be an ex-con who served time in state prison on drug charges after being chewed, spit out, and injured by Oklahoma’s Chicken Farm Slave Labor Drug Rehab Program.
Once the guy figured out that people were onto him and started sharing his Facebook profile pics and prison tattoos on social media, the thief apparently made arrangements to return the boom box back to Jabee.
When doing so, he attached a note explaining it was all just a big mix-up. It takes “plausible deniability” to extremely comical levels.
Yep, that’s it, Sunshine. It's all just a big misunderstanding.
You see, his friend told him to go back to a job site to pick up a radio, so he walked inside and grabbed the really cool artsy boom box that was sitting high on a shelf in the middle of the restaurant. And, oh yeah, he didn’t mean to scrape the East Side Pizza House name off the stereo that he thought belonged to his friend. That was an accident. He just didn’t know what to do!
Seriously, that’s just incredible. And I'm not talking about the laughably far-fetching explanation, but the fact that half of the note looks like it was written by a 12-year-old girl! Did he ask his step-daughter to write that or something?
Anyway, thanks to the ever-vigilant OKC social media police, Jabee’s boom box was returned, and despite a bit of damage, will soon be back on its rightful perch overlooking his dining room.
I guess we should let this be a lesson to all petty thieves looking for a cool boombox – or pink elephant – to stay from hip local pizza places with large social media followings and instead stick with stealing from big box chains that don’t give a damn.
Also, be sure to wear a mask so that you’re not easily identifiable.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised
