The Spouse and I used to know 2 guys, we'll call them Chip and Pete. Pete was a fiend for whatever drugs were laying around, but he was still a close friend- and a MAJOR kleptomaniac. (In the end he stole a bunch of money from us. Fucker.) Chip was a part-time asshole, we didn't like each other but we ran in the same circles. There was no formal "Beef".
So anywhoo Pete came over one day with this pipe he said he stole from Chip. I laughed about it since I really didn't like Chip much. He said he wanted to leave it at my house. OK. It was a really pretty glass piece. I cleaned it up and we used it as our "Traveling" pipe.
So time passes on, and about 8 months later we're getting ready to go out one night and I found out Chip was going to be there. No biggie since we can be at the same table and not start a fistfight. Well, Chip's brother had died of a heroin overdose a few months previous. His brother was a total piece of shit, beat up his wife, went to jail, etc. etc. For some reason, being the kindhearted person I am, I decided this would be a good time to 'make the peace' and hand over the piece. So that night we were hanging in the parking lot for a minute, getting some fresh air, and I pulled him aside and said, "You know I didn't take this, but I'm not going to tell you how I got it. It fell out of the sky."
"Ha!" He said. "Pete gave it to you."
I stuck to my story and felt very Karma-correct about it for a while. But a few months later I ran into Chip and his girlfriend and asked him, "How's that pipe?"
"Oh," he said, "Someone dropped it in the parking lot of my apartment and it shattered."
I could have kept that pipe and given it a loving home. But someone else had stolen it, and by harboring it I felt partly guilty and returned it to its rightful owner. The rightful owner, being a doofus and dickweed, turned around and broke it.
So what the fuck is the moral of this story? Be careful of who comes into your house! What would Chip have thought if for some reason he ended up at my place and saw that pipe in my pipe drawer?!