One thing that was remarkably easy to get away with was doing a runner from a restaurant with a friend. I don’t think it was planned, it just worked out that way. One of us went to the toilet, the other one left the premises. Each assumed the other would pay. Once outside, we realised that neither had done so, but no one came running after us.
I missed this the first time through, and I HATE to make assumptions or hijack a thread, I really do, but… this is very disturbing to me. I sincerely hope you are not doing yourself injury or damaging your health. And if you are, I sincerely hope someone does catch you at it before it goes too far. 
I had something similar once. My first professional job was managing the core distribution system for a supermarket chain. It was a good position and I was an essential employee. Three years later the company good sold. Out of about 400 corporate employees, I was one of about 20 that was kept on. We had this big building with nothing in it. One day, both my boss and the Senior VP that I worked under moved on. I was left with no direction even though I got the occasional phone call to consult on some detail of the transition. This was in May and the weather was getting nice. I decided not to show up for a couple of days. Nothing happened because there was no obvious mechanism for something to happen.
I decided to just check my messages once a day and not go into the office unless it was needed and it very rarely was. The sweet deal was that I was on a retention bonus system and got double pay that year which is still the most I have ever made. In September, they called my in to work in the new company’s corporate office. I got bored and quit in six months. The weird thing there was I knew I was going to quit and wanted to see how short I could make my hours without anyone saying anything. I settled on a nice 10 - 4 with an hour for lunch schedule and no one every said a word.
This is in a slightly different vein from most of the other posts in this thread(I’m far too much of a goody-goody to do something stupidly illegal), but it definitely fits. I was taking second year algorithms. The marking scheme gave 35% of your grade to 7 assignments, with the balance made up by your midterm and final exam. Now, through laziness, poor time-management and absolute stupidity, I managed to not hand in the final 4 assignments – in other words, I threw away 20% of my final mark. I remember dreading looking up my final grade for that course. When I saw my grade, I nearly had a heart attack:
100%. I still can’t understand it. I know that the professor knew me and knew that I knew the material really well(to the point where he’d only allow me to answer a question if no one else gave it a shot), but I’m certain that he didn’t know my name, so that couldn’t have been it. I did “ace” the midterm(I actually lost 7 points but madefor that on a bonus question), and there were certainly enough bonus marks on the final that I probably aced it as well. It’s possible that the professor figured that anyone who could ace both tests deserved 100%, but I wouldn’t even agree with that. It’s also possible that I absolutely killed the final and the bonus questions on the final, and that it was “bell-curved”* up by several marks, and I made up enough bonus on the final to account for the entire 20%.
I’ve never told anybody that I “aced” a course. A big part of it is that I know that I didn’t earn it, and definitely wouldn’t want anybody to make a big deal over it, which of course they would. I once had a potential employer ask me how on earth I pulled off 100 in that course during an interview. I just mumbled something about a lot of bonus marks being available.
- “bell-curving” at my school basically means adding x points to every score
I had this happen to me twice in University with 2 seperate Arts courses.
First was Intro. to Psychology. It was a first year class that I took in the beginning of my 4th year as an Arts elective. Class was on a Monday night from 7:00-10:00 and the lab session was conducted within the class. After attending the first class and skipping the second to go to a concert, I decided that I didn’t want to go back to class and would take a zero on the 10% of the mark that came from lab session. This time was eventually spent on cheap Corona and 2-for-1 wings at the campus pub. Eventually, the midterm came around and was 40% of my final mark and I got a 78. Somehow, after writing the final I ended up with an A+. Surprising since even if I aced the final, it wasn’t possible to get anything higher than an A-. I figure the curve had to be pretty nice since I was probably surrounded by a group of extra-stupid frosh.
Second was Intro. to World Politics. It was also a first year class that I took in my 4th year as an Arts Electives. It was a distant education course conducted over the internet. 30% of the mark was given for participating in the online discussion. By this point, this was the only credit that was standing between me and my degree so my mindset was “as long as I get the credit, I don’t care about the mark”. So I never said a word in the online discussion and there went 30% of my mark. I got a 90 on the midterm and again, after writing the final, the mark on my transcript was an A. I figure the mark on the final was also a 90-something and the prof just ignored the lack of online discussion.
Oh well…I’m done now so it doesn’t matter.
Several times I’ve ditched the engaged traffic cops. You know you’re speeding and notice a cop driving in the opposite direction or secretively hidden on a perpendicular road. This time the cop was driving in the opposite direction of me on a 35mph road—I was doing 50-55mph. Luckily, for me and my plan, this road sits directly next to a large, busy suburb neighborhood.
As the cop car and my van converge I look into my rear view mirror and notice he’s hitting his brakes readying for a turn around. My exit was now immediately approaching. I had to brake so hard that the tires were making unusual noises. I make a quick turn and dash off into the maze of street intersections. I take the 3rd right, drive up three to four houses and park on the side of the street. My eyes are glued on the rear view mirror waiting for the cop. As I see the cop pass by, I think for a second and come up with a plan. I decided that today I lived at this random house I parked next to.
As he passed he looked both ways, down both streets, and spotted me. I wait for him to fully exit my view and get out of the van and approach the houses front door trying to time it perfectly. I wanted him to see me walking towards the door extending my hand towards the doorknob as he comes back by. This worked out in my favor; that’s exactly how it happened. As I notice him out of the corner of my eye, 50 yards away, driving slowly with his window rolled down, I’m just starting to extend my body towards the door knob. At this point I hear someone yelling, “Hey,” the officer asserts, “slow down!” My body was frozen spread out reaching for the doorknob dramatically, then I turned quickly his direction. And gathered myself and said, “Oh, yes, right. Sorry, Sir!” Then I stood at the door for a brief moment. He leaves just in time before my action to looks unnatural.
I actually wasn’t going to walk into the house if he approached me. If I noticed he was coming to give me a ticket, or was approaching my vehicle, I was going to ring the doorbell and ask if Leeroy Jenkins lived there.
Funny. In that story I was running from the cops. In another story I was running to the cops. Some thugs were chasing me after meeting me in the Blockbuster parking lot at midnight (I was dropping off my DVD’s). In response, I sped 100mph+ down the 45mph road and ditched into a dense neighborhood. Weeks later I could easily see my skid marks because I had almost missed the turn. I noticed I had just lost them and was going to park in a random driveway. Well, well, I thought, there’s a nice cop car. I’ll park in that driveway! Breathing heavily, full of adrenaline convinced those guys were going to kick my ass, I got out of the car and ran around to the side of the house. Those men, two cars full of trouble makers, were looking for a fight.
At blockbuster they got out of their cars nearby screaming and cursing at me (supposedly I cut them off) waving their arms. As they observe me getting back into my car they immediately halt the verbal assault and race back into their cars. Boy was that a scary sight!
I had a Bio teacher in high school who hated my guts and did everything in his power to minimize my grade at every turn. One day the school’s biology department invited a bunch of weirdos from “The World Game” to show us a video about Buckminster Fuller’s dome building theory or whatever, and lay down a “map mat” all over the commons area and set up this participatory save-the-world-of-the-future shit. My best friend and I were bored out of our skulls, so we devised a brilliant escape plan which involved both of us pretending to hear nature’s call, and then using hand signals and text messages to develop a route to the parking lot that avoided the teachers and staff. It worked, and we went and saw 2 Fast 2 Furious. Lame movie, of course, but the sense of accomplishment was worth it.
As we headed back to school, we realized that we had overestimated the amount of time the game would take up–students had been herded back into their biology classes to write reflection papers about what they’d learned that day. This was clearly not our scene and we bounced again, this time for good. Somehow we both got 100% on our reflection papers and for participation in the game!
Shhhh…!
I’m typing this at work, and my boss thinks I’m producing the latest project status report!!!111!!one!!
Please think about putting on that 18 pounds in a different way. This sounds more like serious evasion of something that is vital to your health. And your health is more important than staying 18 pounds under and tricking the system that’s trying to get you better. Being underweight is dangerous, just like my serious overweight issue. You eat some good food and get a bit more good weight, and I’ll continue to eat more veggies, okay?
End hijack.
I’m not really amazed by anything I got away with, 'cause I don’t seem to get away with much. Dang it.