True Crime Stories
I just looked over yesterday's post, and I see that it is a tad on the maudlin side. So today I will counter with a tale of wacky hijinks: I will speak of That Time I Held Up A Donut Shop.
I preface by saying that I was in my late teens (or perhaps very early twenties; certainly no older than 21) and that alcohol was involved. Also, Ian was involved, and if you know Ian, then you see what I mean.
So! Ian and I were coming home late one night from a party at Veronica's house. In those days, our modes of transportation were either bicycles, mass transit, or foot. We decided Foot was the best option (and, given our level of inebriation, it likely was) and schlepped our way towards Ian's house, coming south on Grenview towards Bloor Street. We had the idea that it would be a fine thing to end the evening by playing video games on Ian's cutting-edge gaming system, the Atari 2600.
Along the way, we came across some signs shaped liked arrows. They said "For Sale" on them, and pointed the way to a house for sale. These we uprooted, and carried them like machine guns, mock shooting at one another and making awesome machine-gun noises as we did so (again: young. Alcohol).
At Grenview and Bloor there was a Hobnob Donuts shop, and pretty much the only thing open at X in the morning (no idea what the actual time was, but it was very late, or very early, depending on how you look at it). It was the only thing with lights on, shining like a beacon of sugary goodness to the young and poor and inebriated, and all of a sudden, we wanted donuts. We needed donuts. Tragically, neither of us had a dime to our name. But Ian came up with a brilliant plan:
"They always keep that bag of 'Yesterday's Donuts' just behind the counter," he slurred. "We can distract them, and then just ... swipe that bag!"
I could not fault his logic, although my comprehension of the word "distraction" was apparently limited; because when we got to the Hobnob Donuts, I put my foot up against the door, kicked it open, leaped inside, leveled my For Sale arrow sign at the surprised patrons and bellowed "Nobody move! This is a stick-up!"
Ian, God bless him, was in right behind me, covering the other half of the donut shop with his For Sale sign, and he reassuringly added, "We're not going to hurt you! We just want the donuts!"
In such high-pressure circumstances, your brain can speed up considerably, heightening your reflexes and senses, allowing you take in much more than you normally could. Thus is was, in the midst of this daring robbery, that I remember with crystal clarity the waitress, her hand frozen in mid-coffee refill, gaping dumbly at us; the man seated before her, his jaw also slack, eyebrows at their absolute zenith, eyes comically round in surprise; the two guys playing the sit-down version of Donkey Kong, one staring at us, the other rapidly shuttling his eyes back and forth between these strange intruders and his video screen as he kept playing; the woman behind the counter staring at us with an expression that said more clearly that I can ever convey in words, "What the absolute fuck...?"
They remained a frozen tableau as Ian cautiously reached over the counter to snag the bag of Yesterday's Donuts - they were exactly where he said they would be; the man was a criminal genius! I whipped my For Sale sign to the right, covering that half of the shop, uttering "Hut!" as I did so, because that's how I rolled, yo. Then I whipped it to the left ("Hut!") in case any brave boy over there was getting any smart ideas, see?
"Got 'em," Ian said.
"Book," I said emphatically, and we booked.
We ran along Bloor, down the narrow space between two office buildings, ditching our weapons on the way. And when I say we ran, man, I mean we ran. You cannot believe the speed that can be attained by twenty-year-old men who believe that the police are hot on their heels. We sprinted down the street towards Ian's house, then in a fit of astounding cunning, continued past it, dashing across Prince Edward to vault over the fence to the cemetery. We ran through the cemetery in a long and winding path that was sure to befuddle even the most determined police dog.
Eventually we made our way back to Ian's house, and collapsed in the basement, panting, flushed, and exceptionally pleased with ourselves. Ian fired up the 2600 and slapped in the Asteroids cartridge; I opened the bag of Yesterday's Donuts. We clinked our donuts together, and each had a bite.
I should mention, in case you come from a place where Yesterday's Donuts are not a thing, that when a Donut Store sells donuts that are "baked fresh daily", they often bag all the unsold donuts at the end of the day and sell them off the next day at a reduced price.
On our first bite, Ian and I discovered that Hobnob Donuts has a somewhat different concept of the word "Yesterday" than we did. Those babies had to be a week old, at least. It was like biting a vaguely chocolate-flavoured hockey puck. It instantly absorbed all the saliva in your mouth, leaving you chewing (or attempting to chew) a sodden sawdust-like mass. Neither of us even swallowed that first bite; our bodies, despite being handicapped as they were by alcohol, nevertheless simply refused to take them in. We both opened our mouths and let the lumps of donutesque material fall into our open palms.
We threw the donuts out, then played Atari games until we passed out.
The moral is: Crime Doesn't Pay.
I preface by saying that I was in my late teens (or perhaps very early twenties; certainly no older than 21) and that alcohol was involved. Also, Ian was involved, and if you know Ian, then you see what I mean.
So! Ian and I were coming home late one night from a party at Veronica's house. In those days, our modes of transportation were either bicycles, mass transit, or foot. We decided Foot was the best option (and, given our level of inebriation, it likely was) and schlepped our way towards Ian's house, coming south on Grenview towards Bloor Street. We had the idea that it would be a fine thing to end the evening by playing video games on Ian's cutting-edge gaming system, the Atari 2600.
Along the way, we came across some signs shaped liked arrows. They said "For Sale" on them, and pointed the way to a house for sale. These we uprooted, and carried them like machine guns, mock shooting at one another and making awesome machine-gun noises as we did so (again: young. Alcohol).
At Grenview and Bloor there was a Hobnob Donuts shop, and pretty much the only thing open at X in the morning (no idea what the actual time was, but it was very late, or very early, depending on how you look at it). It was the only thing with lights on, shining like a beacon of sugary goodness to the young and poor and inebriated, and all of a sudden, we wanted donuts. We needed donuts. Tragically, neither of us had a dime to our name. But Ian came up with a brilliant plan:
"They always keep that bag of 'Yesterday's Donuts' just behind the counter," he slurred. "We can distract them, and then just ... swipe that bag!"
I could not fault his logic, although my comprehension of the word "distraction" was apparently limited; because when we got to the Hobnob Donuts, I put my foot up against the door, kicked it open, leaped inside, leveled my For Sale arrow sign at the surprised patrons and bellowed "Nobody move! This is a stick-up!"
Ian, God bless him, was in right behind me, covering the other half of the donut shop with his For Sale sign, and he reassuringly added, "We're not going to hurt you! We just want the donuts!"
In such high-pressure circumstances, your brain can speed up considerably, heightening your reflexes and senses, allowing you take in much more than you normally could. Thus is was, in the midst of this daring robbery, that I remember with crystal clarity the waitress, her hand frozen in mid-coffee refill, gaping dumbly at us; the man seated before her, his jaw also slack, eyebrows at their absolute zenith, eyes comically round in surprise; the two guys playing the sit-down version of Donkey Kong, one staring at us, the other rapidly shuttling his eyes back and forth between these strange intruders and his video screen as he kept playing; the woman behind the counter staring at us with an expression that said more clearly that I can ever convey in words, "What the absolute fuck...?"
They remained a frozen tableau as Ian cautiously reached over the counter to snag the bag of Yesterday's Donuts - they were exactly where he said they would be; the man was a criminal genius! I whipped my For Sale sign to the right, covering that half of the shop, uttering "Hut!" as I did so, because that's how I rolled, yo. Then I whipped it to the left ("Hut!") in case any brave boy over there was getting any smart ideas, see?
"Got 'em," Ian said.
"Book," I said emphatically, and we booked.
We ran along Bloor, down the narrow space between two office buildings, ditching our weapons on the way. And when I say we ran, man, I mean we ran. You cannot believe the speed that can be attained by twenty-year-old men who believe that the police are hot on their heels. We sprinted down the street towards Ian's house, then in a fit of astounding cunning, continued past it, dashing across Prince Edward to vault over the fence to the cemetery. We ran through the cemetery in a long and winding path that was sure to befuddle even the most determined police dog.
Eventually we made our way back to Ian's house, and collapsed in the basement, panting, flushed, and exceptionally pleased with ourselves. Ian fired up the 2600 and slapped in the Asteroids cartridge; I opened the bag of Yesterday's Donuts. We clinked our donuts together, and each had a bite.
I should mention, in case you come from a place where Yesterday's Donuts are not a thing, that when a Donut Store sells donuts that are "baked fresh daily", they often bag all the unsold donuts at the end of the day and sell them off the next day at a reduced price.
On our first bite, Ian and I discovered that Hobnob Donuts has a somewhat different concept of the word "Yesterday" than we did. Those babies had to be a week old, at least. It was like biting a vaguely chocolate-flavoured hockey puck. It instantly absorbed all the saliva in your mouth, leaving you chewing (or attempting to chew) a sodden sawdust-like mass. Neither of us even swallowed that first bite; our bodies, despite being handicapped as they were by alcohol, nevertheless simply refused to take them in. We both opened our mouths and let the lumps of donutesque material fall into our open palms.
We threw the donuts out, then played Atari games until we passed out.
The moral is: Crime Doesn't Pay.