Stuff you're amazed you got away with.

In My Humble Opinion
21

In college I bought a used British sports car convertible. I bought it because it was cheap.
The seller told me he had only brought it over to race it, and so it wasn’t “street legal”. I figured he was bragging, and badly, because it was an older model and not very fast.
But he was right that it wasn’t street legal. It had no side mirrors, no working horn, no working wipers, the bumpers had been removed. A regular fixer upper.
But I was so thrilled I had to show it off right away. But it was the weekend and I couldn’t get plates, which in my state stayed with the owner, not with the car.
So I took the plate off my old car and wired it to the new one.
Went to see my old roommate and his girl and they got in just to go around the block.
Since it was a two-seater the roomie sat on the front edge of the trunk with his feet in the passenger compartment. Very dangerous, but we were just sitting in the parking lot.
Just then a cop pulled in and said he had been following me a couple of blocks because I had no taillights and my turn signals were yellow instead of red.
When he went to write the ticket he spotted the wired on plates, and then he made me run through the lights and horn and wipers.
I was looking at over half a dozen laws broken.

He was going to write up the guy sitting on the trunk, but his buddy pulled up and said that rule didn’t apply in parking lots.
They spent a half hour trying to find the codes for all the things that were wrong, decided they had to move aling, and just wrote a single ticket on the brake lights, which I got removed with no fine by bringing in the repair ticket.
Whew!

22

Several years ago, when I was younger and stupider, I hit on the brilliant idea of growing magic mushrooms.

It did require relatively sterile conditions, but not much of an initial cash outlay, since it was a small operation for personal use only; the only things I needed were canning jars, a pressure cooker, spores purchased quite cheaply online, some materials from the gardening section of Wal-Mart, and a terrarium, which was actually just a cheap, plastic blanket box.

Being paranoid about my activities and not wanting to take any extra chances, I did not buy a scale to measure my dosage, as that action could have been construed by authorities as a business venture.

My first crop came up nicely, but never having tried psilocybe mushrooms before, I had no idea how much to take. I took my fan-dried bounty from its bag and spread it all across a large dinner plate. Somehow that dose seemed reasonable for two people. I made tea with it, chilled it in the freezer, added sugar and Kool Aid mix to it, and it ended up tasting just like regular Kool Aid.

After my then-wife and I downed our 32 ounces each of this concoction, bad things started to happen. She was sitting in the bathroom, and called out desperately to me from there, only a few minutes after the drug started hitting us.

“I’m dying!” she screamed.

I was still somewhat lucid, so I replied, “No you’re not. It’s impossible to die from psilocybin.”

“But look!” she yelled holding out a hand full of vomit, “I’m puking and shitting at the same time! I have to be dying!”

Her drastic pronouncement jarred the last bit of the aforementioned lucidity out of me, and I ran to the phone to call 911.

Our apartment was soon swarming with police and paramedics. I told them all exactly what we’d done. I was so out-of-it that I even showed the police my grow setup! In some kind of stroke of extremely drug-addled brilliance, I told the officers that I was an amateur mycologist, though I did constantly refer to my fungi as “magic mushrooms,” and mentioned that people would often trespass on farmers’ land to obtain the ones that grew nearly year-round (I lived in Southern Louisiana at the time) in cow dung.

To my utter shock, not a single one of the paramedics or police officers had ever heard of 'shrooms! Not a damn one knew that I had just openly showed them how I had committed a felony!

We ended up getting an unnecessary ride in the ambulance, and a total of $1800 in medical bills, which we were only too happy to pay.

Needless to say, I threw away all of my supplies the very next day (except the pressure cooker, which we kept for making food), and have never grown or manufactured any drug since.

23

neutron star … where were you that the cops had never heard of such a thing? Wow!

My story’s kind of lame. I was living in the dorms at school, feeling miserable after just saying goodbye to a friend who had come to visit. I was lonely and started to cry and decided the best thing I could do was to fire up a joint and watch my lava lamp.

Usually I took precautions when I smoked so as not to be caught but I didn’t do any of those things that night. So I got a knock on the door - campus security was there, saying that my RA (who uhm…lived RIGHT ACROSS THE HALL) reported that she smelled weed coming from my room. There I was standing there with completely bloodshot eyes (from crying), smelling of weed.

They asked if they could come in.

Normally, I am a goody-two-shoes and would have normally been ready to let them in and bust me and kick me out of school forever. But…

In a moment of dumb luck I remembered reading in the dorm rulebook that you didn’t have to give anyone permission, not even security, to enter your room. I said no they couldn’t come in and told them that she must have smelled some old tobacco that I had been rolling and smoking.

Oddly enough, I HAD been rolling and smoking some tobacco a day or so earlier.

They asked to see the butt of said cigarette and I HAPPENED TO HAVE THE BUTT. I retrieved it, gave it to them, they smelled it (it really was tobacco), and went on their way.

I totally could have ended my life as I knew it right then and there (honestly, I really am a goody-two-shoes, good student, boring git, etc) but somehow my inner badass took over and saved me from a heap of trouble.

24

Selling several hundred rounds of (blank) ammunition at school. . . while a teacher was in the room.

25

Several years ago, a friend of mine tried to get me into hacking TV satellite. I was pretty interested, as I couldn’t get the local network channels, and being able to watch Buffy over satellite rather than over the antenna sounded really nice. I bought the equipment, but never got around to setting anything up- the stuff just gathered dust until I threw it out.

Then, almost a year later, I got a letter from DirecTV telling me that they’d raided the place I’d bought the hardware from, and were now going to sue me for hacking their signal. A bit of research showed that they were using a shotgun technique to sue people they thought might be doing so- file a whole bunch of lawsuits against hundreds of people in an area (to save filing fees), and then try to sue them for an amount calculated to be just enough to scare people into settling. Basically, it was a huge money-making scam (one that the RIAA is now using). They’d threated to sue you for multiple thousands, and hope that you’d decide that the legal fees alone would make it worth settling for the amount they offered.

(Frankly, I’m amazed that this is legal.)

The best wisdom on the internet appeared to be “keep your head down, and don’t do anything 'til they actually file against you”, hoping that you can make it to the two-year SOL date. So that’s what I did.

My friend also got the letter, and settled with them- for $3500.00. I didn’t have that kind of money, and felt like I’d leave it to them to try to prove that I’d actually hacked it. I wasn’t looking forward to having to hire a lawyer, but what could I do? I sure didn’t feel like paying them what felt like extortion.

Then, a year or so later, I got a call from my ex-wife. She’s now a lawyer… and it turned out that she was the lawyer DTV had retained to handle their lawsuits in Austin. And, since she was my ex, she’d had to recuse herself from filing against me.

And, since DTV was spending the absolute minimum on suing their… ahem, “victims”, by doing mass filings, they would’ve had to spend money specifically on me. What’s more, they’d waited until just before the two-year statute of limitations had run out- so they didn’t have time to re-file against me.

So, basically- my ex-wife saved me at least thirty-five hundred bucks by becoming a lawyer.

26

Lafayette, LA, where an average policeman gets paid about $1.50 over minimum wage. Really.

So they’re not exactly among the best and brightest in the law enforcement field. The chief of police of a Lafayette suburb (along with the father of one of my good friends) got busted for attempting to smuggle two tons of pot from Texas a few years back.

27

1988 - 1992, inclusive. What I refer to as “my drinking years”. I don’t really want to get into the multiple drunk driving stories, but once passed a cop while doing 140+ mph. He couldn’t catch me and I assume it takes some time to set up a roadblock - I was far enough ahead of him that I took an exit with my lights off and hid before he got in view. Ha! The passengers freaked out. “Dude, that was a cop” I said. “Whoa, how fast are you going?” they asked. “I dunno… My speedometer only goes to 140” “WHAT?”
That GTO gave a smoother ride at 140 than it did at 65.

28

One of my favourites was as a teenager. I’d been out all night and came home at about 7am. (Needed to get changed before going to school.) I could hear my mum in the garden so I quietly opened the door. I was making my way up the stairs when the bathroom door opened. I thought I was busted. Nope. Dad just asked me what time I got in last night. “About 1?” He nods and goes on his way.

I went to my room and changed my clothes. My Dad never noticed the costume change.

I also got away with stuff with teachers by being completely honest. When a teacher asked me a question, I actually responded - “Don’t ask me! I didn’t get in till 6 this morning!”

After returning to school after a day off, the teacher greeted me with the question - “So, did you buy anything nice?” Yes. My evil friends had ratted me out. So I told the teacher about the beautiful blue dress I bought for the Leavers Do. I didn’t get into trouble on either occasion.

29

Oh gosh. So many things over the years - I must have a Nice Person face or something because I’ve been pretty lucky. There’s one thing that really stands out though: I’ve always had trouble sleeping and from the time I was 6 years old until I left home at 17 I used to sneak out of the house at night and go out and play. I did this a couple of times a week at least. Most of the times I’d just go out and wander around - that’s how it really started. I was awake and bored out of my skull, and at that age I wasn’t allowed out after dark alone, so it was a real adventure to just walk down my street and up to the playground.

Later I enlisted my brother and other friends to go out too. We’d all meet somewhere and just goof around for a couple of hours and then go home. We never did anything really bad while we were out, but we lived adjacent to Air Force off-base housing which had a 10:00pm curfew for people under 18, so we had to avoid the Air Police guys who patrolled the area in their pick ups.

One of the ways we “avoided” the APs was to sneak into the back of their pickups and keep our heads down until we were driven outside the borders of the off-base housing, and therefore out of their jurisdiction. It was considered the height of coolness at the time to suddenly jump up and out of the bed of the pickup at the stop sign and run off laughing.

I had a real close call once, when I went to a friends house at about 2:00am (I was 14 at the time) and while I was chucking pebbles at my friend’s window to signal him, the next-door neighbor (this was a duplex) came home. As bad luck would have it, the neighbor was an AP. I took one look at him, spun on my heels and ran like hell, my long blonde hair blowing out behind me. I ran to the edge of the government reservation and scaled the 12-ft. cyclone fence like it was nothing (I have no idea how I did this to this day) and dropped into a walnut orchard. I continued running - very difficult in the loose soil - even though I was on civilian territory. I never once looked behind me, I just ran as fast as I could.

A couple of days later my Dad (by that time a retired AF officer) asked me about the incident. We lived in a really small town and there was a limited number of young girls with really long blonde hair who ran track, and the AP was asking around. I somehow managed to deny any connection and my Dad apparently believed me. I was ridiculously proud to hear that the AP who had chased me said he never had a chance at catching me, that I was gone like a bullet.

Anyway, this was the closest I ever came to being caught in all those instances of sneaking out over 11 years or so. My Dad undoubtedly had his suspicions on that one incident but neither he nor my Mom knew/know that I did this at all, let alone the scores of times.

30

Somewhat different to the above. Many years ago, I had a mate who worked in satellite TV. I had another mate whose hobby was cracking the encryption. And there was me in the middle. So I used to talk to both and drop hints of what I’d learned from one to the other. They never cottonned on.

31

In the late nineties I held season tickets to the VSO.

It was my usual thing to go loaded up with LSD or MDMA and then duck out to the smoking area at intermission, stand around with the usual symphony smokers, and fire up a joint that was approximately the same size as my tool – seasoned with hashish, drenched in honey oil, and machine-rolled with an oversized black-oil covered rice paper.

At the time, this seemed like perfectly sensible behaviour. I rationalized that the oil changed the aromatic signature, and its perfectly cylindrical form allowed it pass as a cigar. Ha! In my defense I can only say that I was high. Really, really high.

No-one ever said “boo,” although with hindsight I’m sure plenty of folk wondered what the hell was up with the wide-eyed stinky-hash space cadet in the third row who apparently thought he was at a Dead show.

32

When I was younger and much more stupid I would drink to excess and drive. There are too many times to count, but the one that stands out is: I was approaching a train tracks. The lights were blinking red. I looked left and saw no train coming, so I gunned it. The train was coming from the right. It just missed me. I still shutter to think how stupid and lucky I was.

33

I’m in awe of your…ingenious sneakiness.

34

Me, I was (and continue to be) an angel. There was nothing to get away with. But my husband? He has tales of being pulled over by the police as a teen in which the only consequence of the stop was being made to break his bong in the street while the cop watched. Then he and his friends would be sent on their way to continue driving to wherever.

Yeah, it was a different time.

35

Wow, I can’t believe all the stuff you guys have gotten away with…

Me, the moment I’m proudest of was the time I managed to convince a police officer that I didn’t speak any English. (I’m an ABC, American Born Chinese, who speaks English natively and in fact much better than I speak Mandarin.) After 15 minutes of trying to write me up for dodging the subway fare with an expired school train pass (On a Saturday… Over the summer vacation…) he simply confiscated the pass and let me go. He was pretty sure I was faking it, since the pass clearly said I attended a city high school, but given the state of NYC public schools he couldn’t actually rule out that I really spoke no English :slight_smile:

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36

So you were an ABC pretending to be an FOB in NYC. WTF?

37

My band was playing at a VFW hall in a small town. It was a BYOB-type affair, and much B was brought.

On the way back, I was driving my V-6 sedan, with then-GF beside me, and the guitar player, drummer, and roadie crammed in the back. The bass player was following in his two-seater truck with his girlfriend at the gear.

Other than myself, everybody in car was still drinking as I pulled out of the parking lot.

Now this is a little teeny town. There were these raised railroad tracks a couple hundred yards down the main drag on the way back to the freeway. Being that it was late at night and I was under the influence of various substances, I figured it would be an excellent idea to try and jump them.

So I floored it, and hit the tracks at maybe 60mph. I probably got a good three feet of air.

At the top of the arc, I saw who was parked on the other side of the tracks - an officer of the Bumfuck PD.

On came the lights. Four people shoved their open containers down to the floor and propped them up between their feet. Click-click-click-click-click went the seatbelts. I immediately lit a cigarette in an attempt to get some of the smell of brewery off my breath.

The bass player passed us and pulled over further down the road, figuring that I was going to jail and he’d have to give everybody else a ride back home.

A hushed debate about whether the weed needed to be ditched began in the back seat.

I slooowly slipped the switchblade that I always carried out of my pocket and shoved under my seat.

I figured I was dead.

The cop didn’t even make me get out of the car. Just gave me the typical small-town shakedown:

“Do you have any idea how fast you were going back there?”

“I dunno, Sir.”

“Where y’all headed?”

“Back to Cincinnati, Sir.”

“Well have a safe trip. Getting out of town. Like, pronto.”

“Yes Sir.”

The nearest we could figure was that the guy had been napping, and was startled awake by either the roar from my engine as I ramped over the grade or the sound of my bumpers hitting the pavement on the other side, and he’d only caught my flight out of the corner of his eye.

I’m ashamed to admit that pulling a open-container Evel Knievel in front of a cop isn’t even the stupidest thing I’ve ever gotten away with.

38

robardin-May I ask what this is?

39

Why yes, of course you may. :stuck_out_tongue:
Mouse over the original text again and you should see a useful hyperlink…

40

I would post about what I got away with, but then someone would know, they might tell someone else. Next thing you know the jig is up.

Nice try fetus,. or should I say… Officer Wilson!!!

runs away