Double talkin' jive get the money motherfucker 'cause I got no more patience

I mentioned once before that I unintentionally masterminded a criminal operation during my employment at a certain shipping company. (What can brown do for you? Give you back problems for life. That's what.) For some reason, I've been reminded of that a lot lately. Probably because I've been seeing a lot of big brown trucks on the road, but I digress.

When I moved to Vegas to start work on my Ph D, I transferred to a center in Vegas. I'd worked for Big Brown for a long time already, so had moved up the pay scale enough to make it worth it. (Or so I thought. That was before needing back surgery. Nothing's worth that.) The thing that sucked was that everything in that company is based on seniority, and once you transfer to a new location, you lose all of it and have to start back at the bottom of the list. That part I didn't mind either. At least not at first. I'd always said I preferred doing the grunt work where you were just paid to move as fast as possible, without being responsible for making anything neat and orderly. The stress level was much lower that way. However, I was good at the other stuff. Loading trucks (as opposed to unloading) and making everything fit. So, while I lost my seniority, and spent the first few weeks at the new building doing the less stressful stuff, it didn't take long for management to figure out that I was better utilized elsewhere. They assigned me to fill in for anyone who was on vacation, injured, or sick. The sick calls were the worst because if someone was going on vacation they would usually try to give you a day working with that person so he/she could try to show you where things went. Regardless, it was tough being in a different part of the warehouse every day, with no time to really learn the specific areas/trucks that I was loading. But, I did get to know many of the different people around the building. And I got to see many different parts of the operation.

So, after bouncing around for a while (before I eventually got sick of it and gave them an ultimatum: give me regular trucks or I'm going to quit), I was assigned to fill in for a guy who'd broken his leg in a car accident. I loaded his trucks for the entire time his leg was healing, so got to know some of the people in that area pretty well. At least on a superficial level. One day they were talking about how much merchandise got moved through the building on any given day, and how they wished you could just pick a package to take home with you once a month or so. It was something the employees would often joke about, even before I transferred, so I didn't think much of it, but I did say that if given the option you could really do well for yourself if you just learned what to pick and choose. Knowing the businesses that are on the routes you loaded for would definitely help decide what to pick. You know, if given the option. Jewelers, auto shops (especially those that deal with expensive rims), electronics stores, etc. would all get packages that you could take and sell for profit, even if you sold the stuff at a much reduced price. It's the idea behind every pawn shop, right?

Anyway, a few of the guys started talking about how it's just too bad that you couldn't do it and get away with it. I mentioned that I didn't think it'd be that hard*, and it really wouldn't have been. They asked me to elaborate, so I did. I told them exactly what I'd do and how I'd do it.

Fast forward to about six to nine months later. One day four people didn't show up to work. Rumor was that they'd been arrested for stealing from the company. It turned out, they'd taken my "advice" and set up an operation where they were regularly stealing packages. They got caught because they got sloppy (and greedy). Rumor was that the police found them in a storage unit with an estimated $60,000 worth of stolen merchandise that they were trying to move. It's probably a good thing they never clued me in nor offered to pay me my cut.






*For my entire life I've been convinced that I could do anything I wanted to and get away with it. As long as I put a lot of thought into it and as long as it was just one time. I still believe that. After all, our system is set up to catch stupid people and repeat offenders. If you're smart about a crime, and only do it once, you don't give the police anything else to work on. Again, it has to be well thought out, and you have to avoid bad luck while executing your plan, but you get my point.

Telephone call for Mr. Horrible

Me: Did you hear about the shooting over the weekend?
Friend: No.
Me: Well, I guess there were a couple of them, but I'm talking about the one on Friday.
Friend: What happened?
Me: They said on the news that a mom was driving with her 11 and 15 year old kids, and somebody pulled alongside the car and shot her in the head.
Friend: With the kids in the car!?
Me: Yeah. Pretty nuts, huh?
Friend: That's cold.
Me: I know. At least wait until she's dropped the kids off.
Friend: . . .
Me: Or kill the kids too.
Friend: . . .

She drags his body to the edge of the swollen river wrapped in a red velvet curtain stolen from the movie theater where she works

As you well know, Halloween is just around the corner, and anybody who has ever seen a horror movie knows that this is the time of year when friends and loved ones become possessed by evil spirits and become homicidal. When this happens, you will have no other choice but to kill your friends and/or loved ones who become possessed. Of course, we live in a time when the police generally don't buy the excuse that you had to commit murder because the victim was possessed (after all, this is 2007, and that excuse is sooo 1692), so, you're going to have to dispose of the body yourself in order to avoid a life in prison.

You could try dumping the body by the roadside, but really that's the lazy man's way of disposal. Plus, it's very likely that the body will be found within a very short period of time. Once the body's been found, the police are going to start investigating things and will eventually find their way back to you. Especially since it's real easy for someone to see you push the body out of your car. You really should be more careful.

You'd probably be better off weighting the body down and throwing it into the deepest body of water within driving distance. On second thought, that didn't seem to work out so well for Scott Peterson, so maybe you should try other options.

You could always place the body in your bathtub and then fill the tub with acid. The only problem with this is that it's going to take a while for everything to dissolve. You most certainly couldn't have anyone over to the house for a while. This is obviously a bad move if you don't live alone, or if you only have one bathroom. If you go that long without bathing yourself then people are going to talk. They may even send a plumber to your house if you get smelling too bad, so you really ought to think this out more.

Burning the body in your back yard is probably not going to be a good choice because surely the putrid stench of burning flesh and hair is going to give the neighbors cause for concern. They may even call the fire department, and the last thing you want is a bunch of nosy firemen snooping around.

A good way to dispose of the body is to feed it to the hogs. Of course, in order to do this, you have to own some hogs. This in and of itself would give people reason to suspect you of foul play. Also, hogs can't digest teeth or human hair, so you'd need to either get rid of those before, or sift through the pig shit so that nobody else finds them. Last I checked, the police could still use dental records and/or DNA to ID the victim.

Alternatively, you could bury the body in your basement. That would most certainly cut down on the risk of being seen by someone and getting turned in. However, that bag of lyme you bought at the hardware store will only help with the smell of decomposition so much. Not only that, but you can also never, ever sell your house, because if you do, sure enough the new owners will start poking around when they notice the dirt floor in the basement, and then the police will be knocking on the door of your new house.

Yup, if you find it necessary to bury the body, you're better off burying it somewhere in the forest (or desert - whichever is most convenient). This way you can still sell the house if you ever get the urge to move (which you probably will because you'll be haunted by the ghost of your recently deceased friend or loved one). Of course, you'll need to make sure that you dig a deep enough grave that wild animals won't dig it up. Unless you own some heavy farm equipment, that's going to be a lot of manual labor. I'll leave that one up to you. After all, it's your back.

On second thought, maybe you should just call a priest to come and perform an exorcism.