Electric car owner charged with stealing 5 cents worth of juice

[TorchTheWitch]

70. stupid analogy

The water fountains are OFFERED by the school for people welcomed in the school to use. In fact, they're actually required by law to offer them. The school does not, however, make any such offer to the public to use it's electrical outlets. Any dope knows that the electrical outlets on the outside of the building are for the use of the school, only. Surely anyone can understand that it wouldn't be acceptable for people to bring their rechargeable devices to the school for the purpose of recharging them on the school's dime anymore than it would be acceptable for someone to use the outside outlets on people's homes on the owner/renter's dime.

Electricity isn't free anymore than water or telephone lines are. While the school probably wouldn't care if you asked to plug your cellphone in to recharge it or fill a bucket of water for some personal purpose or use a telephone in the school's office to make a quick local call, one should still ASK and not be expected to be given permission for a long distance phone call, an electricity hog like a car or want to use an outdoor water spigot to wash all the cars in the parking lot. Even when I went to high school (which was way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) the outdoor electrical outlets were shut off unless a maintenance person needed to use one and so were the water spigots specifically so that people couldn't steal large amounts of electricity or water from the school.

This guy knew he was charging up his electric car on the school's dime, and thankfully he got caught before he could rack up any more than the five cents that he did because there's no questions whatsoever that had he not been caught at it he would have charged his car on the school's dime all the way up and may have continued doing it when the car needed it so someone else would be unknowingly paying for the electricity which is no more acceptable than siphoning gas out of other peoples' cars without their permission. It's not like he was recharging a cellphone or wanted to use his hairdryer or some other small item, and even if that's all it was he still should have asked permission whether it was an electrical outlet inside or outside of the school.