That Funny Time When We Pretended to Rob a Little Kid

So there we were in the frozen Great White North, and Ann Nilsson didn't have a hat.  The weather was -20 or -30 and windy.  She was either too cheap or too broke to buy one, so she suffered.

One night, our "territories" in town were adjacent to each other's, and after a fun-filled evening knocking on strangers' doors and trying to sell them encyclopedias, Ann and I met up to walk together back to the motel.  As we were walking, I spied a plain black touque lying in a snow bank.  I pointed it out to Ann and she picked it up, dusted off the snow, and put it on.  Some folks look good in anything, and Ann was one such person.

I began to have the stirrings of inspiration.  "Ann, what do you think we should tell the guys about how we got it?"  Ann wasn't really sure what I meant.  This was not an uncommon occurrence.

Let us pause this exciting and suspense-filled tale to point out that John Schlesinger was with us on this particular road trip.  However fun and personable John could be at times, there was a very real mean streak to the guy.  You see, he was an a**hole.  I remember riding with him one day after a rain storm.  There were big puddles on the road, and he went out of his way to try to drive through one in order to splash an old lady walking by. (He failed, thankfully.)  He cackled uncontrollably like . . . well, like an old lady actually. I had never been an eye witness to such mean-spiritedness before.

As the months went by, I came to realise that even though I could get along with John, and have a reasonably friendly working and, on the road, living relationship with him, I really didn't like or respect him.  This was not the case with any other member of my crew, or the members of the other crews with whom I would occasionally spend time.  Some people were great, some were less than great, and some (remind me to talk about Sheldon some day) were certifiably crazy, but on a certain level I genuinely liked them all.  That is to say, I like most people, and being fellow members of the cult of travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen really does create a sense of fraternity.

Back to our tale.  I decided it would be fun to play to John's meanness.  But I wanted to make it believable.  If we just said that I stole it from some kid, John and the rest of the crew would never buy it.  I obviously didn't have it in me.  So here's the story I worked out and rehearsed with Ann on our walk back to the motel:

Ann was really suffering in the freezing cold without a hat, and I decided that the situation simply had to be remedied.  We saw a kid walking by wearing a touque.  He seemed to be about eleven or twelve.  I offered him five dollars for the hat, but he refused.  So I told him, "Look, kid.  The hat isn't even worth five bucks, and you're gonna be home and warm in a few minutes anyways, and tomorrow you can buy yourself a nicer one.  So give me the hat and take the money, or I'll just take the hat no matter what".  The kid got scared, so he just threw the hat down on the ground, and ran away.  The best part is, we ended up getting the hat for free!  But just to be safe, we should probably avoid that neighbourhood from now on.

We got our story straight and promised each other not to chicken out.  We would stick to the story through hell or high water, and pretend we didn't care whether anyone believed us.

As we walked into the motel room, the first thing everyone noticed was Ann's head covering.  Any distraction from the daily monotony is eagerly welcomed on the road, and the obviously well used hat on Ann's head was definitely going to be a story.  Little did they know.

So we launched into our well rehearsed act, each of us picking up where the other left off, and I think we did a pretty convincing job of it.  "Bull***t!" cackled John.  "Sasha, you are too nice to ever do that!  You're just trying to impress me."

Please notice that it says something about his personality that an implied threat of violence toward a child actually would be impressive to John.  Anyways, we had expected some skepticism and initial resistance.  "Well, I only intended to pay for it, and a much more than fair price too.  If there were a store nearby, I would have bought a new touque there for less, so it's not like I was robbing the kid.  How was I supposed to know he would panic and bolt without the money?"

Cackle, cackle.  "I can't believe it!  Sasha, I must be rubbing off on you!"  Cackle, cackle.  The rest of the guys just looked on with bemused smiles, not really sure what to think.

Come to think of it, neither did I.