Paul wants to know: "What's the best scam you ever pulled off?"

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Answers

How much I weigh on my drivers license.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Ha ha ha. Don't people who say this annoy the crap out of you?

I don't think I've ever tried to pull a scam. I have the knack for eventually getting caught, no matter how innocent it might seem. I didn't skip any classes in high school until the last day; I was so paranoid I would get ratted out.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Once at UT I skipped the final for a certain class. And I never asked for a make-up or anything... I just acted like I'd taken the final. And the prof must have thought he'd lost my test, coz he just averaged all my other exams and that was my course grade.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I once took beer to school in year seven (it was a dare, I had no intention of drinking it) and would have gotten away with it had I not stupidly confessed all to the year-level coordinator. She came up to me in the hallway and I blabbed it out. Got a day-long suspension. The funny thing is, she had no idea about it. She had wanted to talk to me about writing something for the school paper. I'm a dork.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

"oh, those cigarrettes in my purse? Those belong to so and so"...and mom believed it.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Heh. Ann, you're speaking my language.

Scene: My bedroom, 1995. "Lili, what's that in the bowl there?" "Oh, uh, herbal tea, mum..."

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

When I was at summer camp, Lou Pinella's (former Yankee's player, current Mariner's manager)daughter and I would lie about the swimming level we were at and steal special braceletts that would let us use the "big pool" that didn't have tons of little kids in it, and let us use the paddle boats on the lake.

And senior year in high school if I had a substitute teacher in my 8th period class I would fake being sick and ask to go to the nurse, but then I would just go to my car and leave school early.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

A couple of years ago, during that horrible El Nino, a friend and I spent 7 hours getting home from work...what was normally a 1 hour drive. So the next day, road was clear, but we decided there was no way we wanted to get back on the road. So, she drove over to my house with her cell phone, and we got in my car parked in the drive and I started it up. I have an old diesel Mercedes that is quite loud, and we called my boss and I yelled "Yeah, Denise and I have been on the road for over an hour and we're not moving very fast, not sure if the road is open, a lot of people are turning around, so we're just going to turn around here before we get to the point in the road where there's no turning back!" and work was like, "okay, yeah...doesn't make sense for you to just sit there". Then we hung up, turned off the car, went inside and had wine coolers all day. It was great.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

We couldn't smoke in our high school bathroom, because it was way too small. And we couldn't smoke in the parking lot, because that's where the teachers went to smoke.

But the kindergarten bathroom was off in its own section of building, and none of the lower school kids would go in it, including the kindergarteners, because it was uncool. So we'd go smoke there and didn't once get caught- although I'm pretty sure everyone knew anyway.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I forgot that I had a speech to do in my public speaking class until the night before it was due. I was suppose to deliver a persuasive speech about donating money to public television. I had done some research on the subject, BUT there was no way I could pull together a decent enough speech to get a good grade. I was already doing bad in the class and I didn't want to fail. So, I stuck cotton balls in my mouth before class and told my teacher I couldn't speak because I was in pain after having my wisdom teeth out. I don't even know how I thought of that. My teacher totally bought my bad acting and told me I could do it the following week. Whewww...

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

The plan we had to forge U.S. Currency...

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

I was a loser in high school, but when it came time for yearbook pictures, I skipped class and posed in the student council group pic and the NHS group pic even though I was in the lower 1/2 of my class. Me and a friend did this together..never mind, she was popular and really belonged there.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

I can't reveal my greatest scams, but I can tell you about figuring out how to rip an old vending machine in the building where I worked part-time in highschool. It was a really antiquated machine and I figured out how to put in a quarter yet extract goods that were worth a couple of bucks.

I also worked on the yearbook in highschool and I was in charge of doing the paperwork when individual and group photos were taken. I kept getting my picture taken until I was satisfied with the end product. Another year, I took out my photo because it was crappy and I couldn't be bothered getting it retaken. I also was on hand for each and every club and team photo (not in the pictures, though) to "organize" it even though I was not needed. I found so many ways to skip classes in highschool.

Oh yeah, I also never paid a month's rent that I owed to my former roommate because several times I had bailed her out by paying Bell Canada to make sure the phone didn't get cut off, even though I had already paid my share. Still, I should have paid her a month's rent but I kept throwing in her face all the times I bailed her out with the phone and electricity.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Hee hee, Maggie, I did yearbook in high school too and used it as an excuse to skip many classes. The assistant editor and I put ourselves into a bunch of the club photos just for the hell of it.

I'm not sure if this works anymore, but Maggie's story about vending machines reminded me that in Canada, if you have access to a supply of English two-pence pieces, they work as dollar coins in a lot of vending machines. I did a lot of cheap laundry that way.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Apparently you used to be able to use French centimes in place of subway tokens on the TTC. I never had access to a bunch of centimes, so it never worked for me.

There was a pay phone in the lobby of my residence building that was specifically for making collect calls. Somehow, it was broken and you could make direct dial long distance calls on it for free. I didn't find out about it until after it was fixed. I was really sorry to have missed out on that action.

I just remembered when Deborah and I were in first year. We were on the subway and we got off at College station to make a phone call. The phone on the platform was screwed up and when we pushed the refund button, it poured out money like a slot machine. We kept pounding it until it was empty. All kinds of people saw us and gave us the stank eye. I think they were just mad that they hadn't gotten to it first.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

I'm sitting here giggling with evil glee over the vending machine stuff. And I'm reading it aloud to Paul, but for some reason he's not laughing.

Tales of thwarted vending machines just do something for me, I guess.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

One time my ex got a car from a friend of his for $60 and he fixed it and gave it to me and I sold it for $500.

Cha-ching!

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

I had a bachelorette party for my friend at this nice hotel downtown. I paid for it using my mastercard. Later that night, we were out at the bars, and I "lost" the group and found my boyfriend. After a evening of heavy drinking, we went back to the hotel, only to find we were locked out of my room and couldn't wake anyone up. So, we went and got another room, I used the same credit card, and crashed. When I got the credit card bill, I called and asked why I had been charged for two rooms for the same night,when I had only gotten one. They apologized over and over and credited my account.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

Stealing the rainbow off a float (small float) with a friend the night before the parade and dumping it on an elementary school playground.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

In college, was underage while on a choir trip and posed as a Swedish exchange student to get into a bar, as all my friends were older than I was at the time.

It worked.

I don't know a WORD of Swedish.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000