Some people love owning their own business. Entrepreneurs have made this country great. But sometimes success can be sabotaged by strange events.

Take Maxie’s new business, for example. Maxie bought a franchise from a guy who owns Magic Wand car wash systems. Maxie’s business is in Leonardtown, MD.

From the very beginning, Maxie knew something wasn’t right. He kept coming up short in his "auto cashier," a mechanical device used to make change and accept payment for a car wash. Maxie suggested to the franchiser that maybe some of his employees still had keys to the machine and were ripping him off.

"No way!" says the franchiser. "I run a criminal history on all of my people and I’d trust any one of them with my life." He agrees to set up a surveillance camera so the "auto cashier" will be watched 24/7.

The very next day Maxie comes up short. Everybody has their fingers crossed that the camera will reveal the culprit. Sure enough, it does! Seems like the thief uses the change slot to actually enter the inside of the machine. He then goes down inside the machine, grabs some money and comes back up to the entrance point and escapes with the loot.

"Impossible!" you say.

Really, it’s quite simple. First, let’s identify the thief. He is Starnus vulgaris — that’s the Latin name for the starling, a pesky little blackbird that was brought to the U.S. from Europe in 1890. We know that because South Carolina naturalist Rudy Manke identified the bird from one of the surveillance photographs.

We can’t be sure, but there may have been more than one bird — starlings tend to all look alike. After each entry the bird would emerge with at least one quarter and sometimes as many as three.

Was this a major problem? You decide. After the thief was identified, the car wash folks found over $4,000 in quarters in the eaves of the car wash roof and more under a tree where the starlings went to roost at night.

Footnote: The writer has a series of jpg photographs of the birds stealing money from the car wash. If you’d like to see a picture, send your e-mail address to the address below.