Can't you just picture it?

Three guys sitting around the carport with some cold beverages mulling over the $5 introductory Superferry tickets and how they could leverage that opportunity into a grand moneymaking hustle.

Go Neighbor Island shoot goat. Nah, too much work.

Go Neighbor Island go steal maile. Nah, not May Day or graduation time.

Go Neighbor Island, go steal 'opihi. Wait, Maui and Kaua'i hardly get 'opihi already.

Hey, I know! Let's go get rocks! Rocks are high-dollar items in landscaping and saying they're Maui rocks, well, that just makes them more alluring.

Of all the potential harm discussed over the past weeks, months, years, who would have dreamed that somebody would try to steal truckloads of pohaku the first week of ferry service? And you thought the copper bandits were brazen!

If there's anything the Superferry has taught us, it is to expect the worst. All along, it's been hoping for the best.

What's the worst thing that could happen in court?

The Hawai'i Supreme Court could kick it in gear, hear oral arguments, issue an immediate decision and order an environmental assessment just days before the official start date. Yeah right. Like that would ever happen.

Oh, wow, it did.

What if the same judge that said no environmental study was needed slapped a TRO on the ferry just days after the first launch? Nah, what are the chances?

And look.

What's the worst thing that can happen when Superferry officials are trying to prove that they are a benign, even beneficial, presence on the Neighbor Islands, and when O'ahu people are seething at the insulting suggestion that they might go Neighbor Island and steal stuff?

Some thieves could go Neighbor Island and steal stuff. Aiyah.

The point is that no one thought of this ahead of time.

But surely someone should have thought of this earlier, not so much to catch the shipment of stolen goods sitting for days on the docks, but to discourage the very attempt to use the Superferry to transport stolen property. Messages that say, "We're gonna look at the stuff you're bringing and if it looks funky, we're gonna ask questions." All we heard was how easy it was going to be to come and go and bring what we want so long as the tires weren't too dirty.

What's the worst thing that could have happened to the guys with the trucks and the rocks? Getting caught or getting stuck?

Now no rocks, no trucks, no can.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.