My life, reduced to a cliché
The letter read:
"Dear Mr Beam: You have been invited on a three-day, two-night all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to appear on our television show.
I didn't need to read any further. The excitement of a free trip didn't even register as my eyes focused on the giant "m" embossed in the corner of the letterhead.
This is what it had come to.
She said her name was Avril.
It started last July, when I was on my vacation in Winnipeg. I had just returned to my hotel room after the Blue Bombers game, and I decided to go downstairs to the hotel lounge to watch some of the late game from Vancouver on their big screen.
As halftime was winding down, a couple walked in and sat down at the far end of the bar. They were obviously in an argument -- the man's low grumbles alternated with the woman's pleadings, all the while switching fluidly between French and English. After several minutes, he must've gotten fed up with her, because he pounded the bar, yelled something en Français, and left, leaving the lounge in an uncomfortable silence.
This was obviously a bad time for me to go to the bar and ask for a drink refill, but BC had just scored and the game was on commercial. It became even more uncomfortable when the bartender told me that he'd have to go in the back and replace the Diet Coke syrup canister.
So I'm left sitting at the bar next to her, and of course -- unsolicited -- she tells me her whole life story. Fortunately, my drink arrived quickly.
She followed her HS boyfriend Alec (the storming-out-of-the-bar guy) from the small Quebec village of Jevou-Strompé to Manitoba, where he was working in the northern oil fields. She had stayed in Winnipeg for better job prospects, catching on as a waitress at Moxie's, sort of a high-end Applebee's-like Canadian franchise.
It's at this point things got fuzzy, but what I remember at that point was the splitting headache.
****
I woke up the next morning in my room, curious as to how I had gotten there. After a shower and packing things up, I noticed a handwritten note on top of the TV: "Merci for all you've given me. A."
So I started looking around -- laptop, rental-car keys, kidney (because you just never know); all there -- but what was missing was about $17 Canadian left over from the previous day's ATM visit. (Fortunately, I had left my wallet and US money in the car in the garage across the street overnight.) Embarrassed but otherwise unburgled, I checked out.
****
I didn't think much of it until last month, when I received a DVD in the mail. Scribbled on one side was "Hey, Dad, it's yours!" Curious, I popped it in my laptop, and there she was -- visibly pregnant. If I was shocked at that, I was floored at what she said next.
She wanted $10,000 pre-delivery, or she'd be announcing to my friends and family the results of a DNA test using some of my hair. (You'd think I'd've noticed some missing. *meh*) Onscreen at the end of the video was an Edmonton-based postal box, a Toronto-based cell phone number, and an offshore bank account number.
All this information came from the Manitoban division of the RCMP, who also informed me that this has been an ongoing scam throughout the Canadian Midwest for several years, and that Avril and Alec (both aliases) were in fact brother-sister cohorts in crime. They were also still on the lam. If I heard from her, I was to let the RCMP know.
So now the Canadian authorities know about the Maury appearance, and have told me to go through with it. I go to New York at the end of May, where they will hopefully arrest one or both of them after the show. If things go to plan, they should be brought to trial right before the episode's schedule air date.
So be sure and keep an eye out for Avril Phoulx.
"Dear Mr Beam: You have been invited on a three-day, two-night all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to appear on our television show.
I didn't need to read any further. The excitement of a free trip didn't even register as my eyes focused on the giant "m" embossed in the corner of the letterhead.
This is what it had come to.
She said her name was Avril.
It started last July, when I was on my vacation in Winnipeg. I had just returned to my hotel room after the Blue Bombers game, and I decided to go downstairs to the hotel lounge to watch some of the late game from Vancouver on their big screen.
As halftime was winding down, a couple walked in and sat down at the far end of the bar. They were obviously in an argument -- the man's low grumbles alternated with the woman's pleadings, all the while switching fluidly between French and English. After several minutes, he must've gotten fed up with her, because he pounded the bar, yelled something en Français, and left, leaving the lounge in an uncomfortable silence.
This was obviously a bad time for me to go to the bar and ask for a drink refill, but BC had just scored and the game was on commercial. It became even more uncomfortable when the bartender told me that he'd have to go in the back and replace the Diet Coke syrup canister.
So I'm left sitting at the bar next to her, and of course -- unsolicited -- she tells me her whole life story. Fortunately, my drink arrived quickly.
She followed her HS boyfriend Alec (the storming-out-of-the-bar guy) from the small Quebec village of Jevou-Strompé to Manitoba, where he was working in the northern oil fields. She had stayed in Winnipeg for better job prospects, catching on as a waitress at Moxie's, sort of a high-end Applebee's-like Canadian franchise.
It's at this point things got fuzzy, but what I remember at that point was the splitting headache.
****
I woke up the next morning in my room, curious as to how I had gotten there. After a shower and packing things up, I noticed a handwritten note on top of the TV: "Merci for all you've given me. A."
So I started looking around -- laptop, rental-car keys, kidney (because you just never know); all there -- but what was missing was about $17 Canadian left over from the previous day's ATM visit. (Fortunately, I had left my wallet and US money in the car in the garage across the street overnight.) Embarrassed but otherwise unburgled, I checked out.
****
I didn't think much of it until last month, when I received a DVD in the mail. Scribbled on one side was "Hey, Dad, it's yours!" Curious, I popped it in my laptop, and there she was -- visibly pregnant. If I was shocked at that, I was floored at what she said next.
She wanted $10,000 pre-delivery, or she'd be announcing to my friends and family the results of a DNA test using some of my hair. (You'd think I'd've noticed some missing. *meh*) Onscreen at the end of the video was an Edmonton-based postal box, a Toronto-based cell phone number, and an offshore bank account number.
All this information came from the Manitoban division of the RCMP, who also informed me that this has been an ongoing scam throughout the Canadian Midwest for several years, and that Avril and Alec (both aliases) were in fact brother-sister cohorts in crime. They were also still on the lam. If I heard from her, I was to let the RCMP know.
So now the Canadian authorities know about the Maury appearance, and have told me to go through with it. I go to New York at the end of May, where they will hopefully arrest one or both of them after the show. If things go to plan, they should be brought to trial right before the episode's schedule air date.
So be sure and keep an eye out for Avril Phoulx.