Cookie cop foils burglar

Special kudos out there to SCF reader l_l_varner for the story!

Courtesy of Augusta Chronicle

Loretta Lynn Scott doesn't need a guard dog for her home. She's got a cookie cop.

The 30-year-old west Augusta resident was spared a confrontation with a burglar early Friday when the intruder triggered the 9-inch tall talking container in her dining room.

The burglar sneaked into her ground-floor apartment through a half-open window about 1 a.m.

When he opened the head of the jar, he got a loud recorded warning: "Stop. Move away from the cookie jar!"

Ms. Scott, who was awake in her darkened bedroom, went to investigate.

"I thought maybe one of my kids had snuck in, but they always come into my room when they get up," she said.

Ms. Scott only got a glimpse of a white tennis shoe as the burglar dove out the window.

Because it was dark in that part of the apartment, Ms. Scott thinks the thief mistook the cop cookie jar for a piggy bank.

In any case, the jar, a recent gift from her mother, has her friends and family chuckling.

"It wasn't funny at the time, but now it's hilarious," she said. "It's my guardian angel, and I'm not getting rid of it."

The cookie caper remains unsolved, but even if the intruder had managed to silence his battery-operated nemesis, he would have gone away hungry.

Ms. Scott's girls had polished off the cookies earlier.