With the price of gasoline continuing to hit new record-high prices, people are feeling the crunch financially. While the costs may be making them more desperate, they certainly haven’t made them any smarter.

Witness, for example, the display of industriousness of a 19-year-old Hastings, New Zealand, man who got it in his head to acquire his gasoline under cover of the night and from someone else’s vehicle. Alas, the man, being no expert on siphoning, couldn’t quite see what he was doing in those hours of darkness. Fortunately, he had a lighter…

Hastings police say it’s amazing the unnamed man didn’t blow himself up when he held the lighter to the siphon. He did, however, manage to set the car ablaze when his flame got too close to the fumes.

Witnesses to the act of criminal genius called police who, so far, have only charged the man with theft.

» Scott Saxon