Thief swipes ‘Christmas Story’ leg lamp from WA plumbing store

Marysville police are on the lookout for a 45-inch-tall lamp with fishnet stockings, a black stiletto heel and tasteful black fringe around the shade.

Erich Klemp, owner of Larry’s Plumbing Supply, was getting ready for work around 5 a.m. Monday when he got the call from police and the store’s security company. They weren’t pulling his leg.

A burglar had smashed a display window and taken his “coveted” $245 lamp – a replica of the “fra-GEE-leh” lighting that Ralphie Parker’s dad won in the 1983 cult classic “A Christmas Story.”

In the movie, Ralphie’s mom describes the lamp as “the ugliest lamp (she had) ever seen in (her) entire life.”

But the burglar apparently felt differently.

“There’s definitely things to steal (at the store) and they took my lamp,” Klemp said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Nothing else was missing from the showroom full of faucets, fixtures and other plumbing goods.

The store posted black-and-white security footage on its Instagram. It shows a person in a hoodie busting the glass and snagging the lamp – described by Ralphie’s voice-over as “electric sex gleaming in the window” – before strolling away.

The lamp had been part of the store’s holiday window display since 2020, Klemp said.

He spent $3,000 on a new window. And $245 to replace the lamp.

“I think I was more bummed out about having to pay for a new window,” he said.

Caitlyn Freeman: cfreeman@seattletimes.com.