When they make a movie out of this story...

[twickster]

…I’ll get a bit part.

About a week and a half ago, one of our freelancers let us know she hadn’t gotten a check from us. We followed up on this end, and it turns out that the check – for a tad under $1,000 – had been cashed at a bank in Utah by some guy named {Generic Guy’s Name}. (We’re in Penna., the freelancer is in Oregon.)

I actually participated in a few of the phone calls – with the freelancer and the Utah bank – one afternoon when neither my managing editor nor the person who cuts checks for us was here.

Got an email from the freelancer this morning, reporting that:

I got a call today from the postal inspector and they caught {Generic Guy’s Name} who stole and forged my check (yes, he did use his real name!). Seems he was on a crime spree with a stripper, stealing a car and many, many checks that took them from Oregon through Utah and eventually to Louisiana where they were caught by State troopers and now sit in jail charged with Federal crimes.

This is probably the only time I’ll have any connection whatsoever withh a story involving a stripper and a cross-country crime spree.

[Zebra]

It isn’t too late to turn your life around.

[twickster]

@Zebra

It isn’t too late to turn your life around.

[Kalhoun]

@twickster

…I’ll get a bit part.

About a week and a half ago, one of our freelancers let us know she hadn’t gotten a check from us. We followed up on this end, and it turns out that the check – for a tad under $1,000 – had been cashed at a bank in Utah by some guy named {Generic Guy’s Name}. (We’re in Penna., the freelancer is in Oregon.)

I actually participated in a few of the phone calls – with the freelancer and the Utah bank – one afternoon when neither my managing editor nor the person who cuts checks for us was here.

Got an email from the freelancer this morning, reporting that:
This is probably the only time I’ll have any connection whatsoever withh a story involving a stripper and a cross-country crime spree.

That is so awesome! So…will you play yourself, the stripper, or the Bad-Ass Boyfriend?

(I bet the stripper snaps her gum.)

[twickster]

Probably myself – though I guess I could play the wronged garden writer in Oregon.

[tdn]

She’ll play the part of {Generic Character Name}.

That’s a pretty cool story.

[KneadToKnow]

@twickster

This is probably the only time I’ll have any connection whatsoever withh a story involving a stripper and a cross-country crime spree.

Ah, I remember my first time. Trust me, after ten or so, it gets to be like anything else.

[Flander]

Postal inspectors will get you every time!

[Sunrazor]

Please tell me there was an hour-long hand-wringing debate in your newsroom over whether to cover the crime spree in the pages of your pub and that at least one editor passionately pleaded, “Damnit, we don’t MAKE the news, we REPORT the news!” and that the assistant managing editor just as vehemently swore, “It’s not just our right to publish, it’s our duty to publish!”

God, I miss those days. In a “not” kind of way.