A heartwarming crime story out of Canada this weekend: someone stole 20,000 "litres" of real genuine maple syrup in Quebec, worth roughly $150,000. Even better, and by "better" I mean more criminal, someone stole $18 million of maple syrup back in 2012.

How? Why? I don't know. I don't write these headlines. I just read them and repeat them as if they're real facts instead of Canadian fan fiction.

These heists got me thinking: I bet it would be pretty great to steal a bunch of maple syrup, because then I'd have a bunch of maple syrup.

But I'll need a partner. Think of me as the Winnie the Pooh figure in this heist, except I’m after maple syrup not honey. And I would prefer not to get my fanny stuck in a tree trunk. My point is, what I lack in manual dexterity or brains, I make up for with my singleminded resolve to own and then eat a lot of sweet goop. Possibly on pancakes, but preferably on waffles. You could be my Piglet or Christopher Robin.

Here's what I need from you:

A passing interest in maple syrup, but no desire to eat all of it yourself, so that I can have most of the maple syrup.

You should know the difference between real maple syrup that comes from the tears of trees in the forest, and the garbage science syrup that comes in plastic bottles at the grocery store and tastes like wax and corn syrup. I don't want to finish this heist and it turns out we got the wrong kind of syrup.

Hopefully you have a car or truck or some other method of hauling maple syrup? I googled "litre" and it autocorrected to "liter" and it says 0.264172 US liquid gallons is the same as 1 liter. So I guess that means we'll need to bring a calculator in addition to a good storage tank.

You better watch the movie Strange Brew before we start, just to get into character. In that film they steal a bunch of beer in Canada. I'm not a big fan of beer, but it's 1) a liquid, and 2) sort of a Canadian thing to steal, so I think it'll be helpful as a movie to watch. Also it will help us rank the works of Rick Moranis, my preferred road trip activity.

Don't watch Oceans 11 if you haven't already. I can't afford all those gadgets and tricks, and I also don't want to split the maple syrup with nine other people. It's basically a waste of time unless you like fun conversations between two men who, unlike Rick Moranis, appear completely comfortable in their own skin: George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

When we get to the scene of the heist (oh btw maybe look up "maple syrup factory canada" on Google Maps and see what comes up, we should go to one of those places you find) make sure not to start opening up the bottles of maple syrup and just drinking them. No matter how careful you are, you always end up getting some maple syrup on your fingers, and if you end up leaving sticky fingerprints everywhere that's going to tip off the Mounties. There will be plenty of time to drink the maple syrup during the car ride back to America.

Oh yeah that reminds me: you should have a passport, because Canada is an international country even though it's just right next door and they seem so nice. If anyone at the border asks you what you're doing with all that maple syrup in the back of your car or truck (I will be hiding under a seat so nobody knows it's me, a popular and well-known blogger), tell them you're "trying to improve international relations." But don't shake the border patrol's hand because your hand will likely be dripping with maple syrup by this point, so close to freedom.

I look forward to meeting you and committing this yummy crime in the near future!

Thanks,

Paul