Ways to Increase Your Electricity Bill (Silverton Style)
December 12, 2014
Vitally Crucial Finger Crossing
January 9, 2015
This is a short story that was inspired by an essay I originally wrote in early December of 1012. The short story is a little bit longer than the original essay since I had a chance to play with the creation of the tale and a fictional version of the original nonfiction essay.
Currently getting together an assortment of the essays from the blog and what’s been published in the local newspaper and putting out a book in early summer of next year. Should be fun if just getting the readers for the essays is any indication so far.
Word Count: 1495
The Perfect New Toy Scam
Most economists agree that the proliferation of customers buying items off the Internet has led to a decline in revenue collected by traditional brick-n-mortar retail establishments. It’s also created a few other unforeseen consequences that very few people could’ve predicted. The creation of all sorts of scams and deceptions most adults would chastise their children for being involved in. They’re secretly very happy the kid pulled it off though. Basically because the scam is a sweet example of the child’s genius and resourcefulness showing through. A clear and quintessentially great deception they wish they’d thought of when they were that age. Probably lots of great memories for the kid later in life, and little or no adult blowback as a result of the present incident happening.
Sort of like last week when you were able to convince the boss you needed to take time off from the job to attend your grandmother’s funeral. She’s still alive and kicking, but he doesn’t know that. Even managed to persuade him to pay you for the time off, but the convincing part is largely thanks to your colleagues who backed you up. Had to bribe‘em to say something, but you’ll figure out a way to pay for the party incidentals later.
Maybe that’s where your kid gets it? No, his uncle was a carnival grifter and his great grandfather happened to be a prolific used car salesman. You’ll never reveal that little tid bit of information about his heritage to him.
What you will ask him is what circumstances allowed him to pull off the scam and more importantly, what made him think he’d be able to successfully delude everyone. You’ve got to make it look like you’re still mad at him and being the stern, thoroughly in command parent. This is after all an absolute government and not a democracy. You’re the President-for-Life like the way most proper third world dictatorships are supposed to operate.
The Living room of the McFadden residence. Charles is doing his best to sound like the perfect “Toughlove” parent:
“So what gave you the notion that this might work?” said Charles, trying to sound like a boot camp drill sergeant as he spoke the words.
“I don’t know,” said Nelson, a look of god-fearing guilt painted all over his face. “When I told Omar at school the first time it happened he said I should keep doing it. He told me nobody would notice.”
“And if Omar told you to jump out of an airplane would you do it?”
“No,” The thought suddenly shot into Nelson’s head, Omar did in fact say he should join him on that initial adventure of his sky diving, “Yes,” Better not mention that. “Well no.”
“Alright then. I want the full story and maybe I might not punish you for this.” I’ll need a detailed recap of events. This could make a great TV script some day.
Nelson hesitantly plunged in. “You know how I get home from school about an hour before mom comes to the house?”
“Don’t remind me.” From a child welfare standpoint this practice could get Marian and I into a lot of hot water-leaving an eight-year-old kid to take care of himself. Better leave that one out of my upcoming script.
“What?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
“I do exactly like you and mom tell me to and check the mail first thing right after getting home.”
“And?”
“One day I noticed that one of the small boxes that got sent to you was partly torn apart. It said “Mattel Toy Company” on the outside.”
Charles tried to look even more menacing as he glared in the direction of his son. “That piqued your curiosity.”
“What’s “piqued” mean? Its kind of a mountain isn’t it?”
I’ll ignore that question. “You didn’t tear the box open?”
“I swear dad, it came that way. I didn’t tear the package when I got it.”
Another reason why the U.S. Post Office is in big trouble. Actually that’s kind of mild when you compared it to a lifetime NRA member going postal on his fellow worker bees. “You just sort of opened the box a little bit more when you noticed it was torn apart. How convenient.”
“Well kinda.”
Go easy on the kid. Otherwise he won’t fill you in on anymore details and the script will suffer. “Alright, since you didn’t tear open the box yourself I’ll believe you. Then what.”
“Next I took a look at the packaging and noticed that inside the box had a toy car inside.”
“Of course you got very curious at that point.”
“I couldn’t help myself dad. I’m sorry.”
“And you should be. Next you opened up the box and saw it contained a new Hot Wheels miniature.”
“I took it out of the card board container and looked at it, but I didn’t tear open the plastic packaging. I kinda knew it was a new toy mom bought on line for my birthday, so I put the car back in the cardboard box it came in.”
“Then you sealed it back up and made it look like it had never been tampered with. Did you really think you could get away with this?”
“I guess,” said Nelson.
Actually you did pull the wool over pretty much everyone’s eyes. If it weren’t for me catching him this latest time the kid would’ve tricked everyone once again. “And you kept checking the mail box every day in the hopes that a new car had been sent to us. Did you really manage to re-seal the boxes twenty seven times?”
“Well yes. I figured out a way to open the box to check and see if there was a Hot Wheels car inside. Then glue it back up.”
Why’d the Mattel Toy Company send us twenty-seven toy cars twenty-seven different times? Bureaucracy run amok. Guess that’s one way to justify your shipping costs. “So now what. Why don’t you tell me how I should punish you for this?” Actually sounds sort of legitimate.
“Gosh dad. What should I do? You want me to decide on my punishment?”
“Yes.” Apparently I’ve backed the kid into a corner and now he’s totally confused. Should I do it that way? Why not, my dad did it with me all the time and “bewilderment” was pretty much the norm when I was a kid.”
“Well, uh. What if my punishment is not having me check the mail every day.”
“Naah, wouldn’t work so well since mom needs you to do all these little jobs before she gets home. That happens to be one of them.”
“Ok, how about I’m grounded?”
“Maybe, but that might not work either. We want you to spend time outdoors most days after school.”
A look of sheer terror painted itself all over Nelson’s face. “What if I can’t figure out my penalty? Whatever you end up having me do will it be even worse won’t it?”
Quick come up with something, otherwise the kid will think you’re confused. Wouldn’t want that to happen. “Ok, here’s what I want you to do. Continue to try and open each box we get from the Mattel Toy Company. When I get home you tell me and I’ll judge your efforts. Then we seal up the box and you can’t open it back up for real till the day of your birthday.”
“Gosh dad, that almost sounds like you’re rewarding me instead of punishing me for what I did. You sure you want me to do that?”
“I’ll have very strict standards for your attempts at opening the boxes. If they aren’t good enough then you’ll really find yourself in hot water.” Is this bullshit or what? Did I sound serious enough to get the kid to buy it? Did I look sincere enough? Hope so, otherwise I’m the one paddling upstream against a class V Rapid in my paper Mache canoe.
“So what do I do now?”
“Your mother and I would like you to go to your room and think long and hard about what you’ve done.” Gosh, that also sounds like a halfway justifiable parental request. Guess I’ve sort of covered my bases on that one.
Now Nelson’s facial expression was an indication of how utterly perplexed he was. “When I’m not thinking what should I do in my room?”
Oh boy, another golden opportunity to dole out some sort of punishment that isn’t so lame. “We don’t want you to set up and play with any of your Hot Wheels Cars until the day of your birthday. This is part of your punishment.”
“Ah dad, come on?”
Good he got upset, that means the punishment is legitimate. “That’s part of your penalty for discovering what the presents are ahead of time. I won’t have any arguments. Do I make myself perfectly clear young man?”
“Yes dad.”
At least one of us thinks so.
END
