One question you’ve probably been asking yourself is “Where can I find a cool disguise that will allow me to pull off the perfect bank robbery?”
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but a New Hampshire man has beaten you to the punch. I wish I were making this up, but there on a bank’s security camera is 49-year-old James Coldwell calmly exiting a branch of Citizen Bank inconspicuously dressed as … a tree.
Mr. Coldwell, after duct-taping numerous leafy branches to his head and torso, walked into the bank, demanded money and walked back out with an undisclosed amount of cash.
“Wow,” I’ll bet you are saying to yourself right now. “Why didn’t I think of that? He totally blended in!”
This story illustrates that we should never underestimate the value of a good camouflage. You may even consider borrowing Coldwell’s idea by attending your next high school reunion disguised as a mature elm. I mean, why do something lame like wearing a bag over your head?
Now I realize most people will be quick to judge Mr. Coldwell as a pretty dim bulb, or a few branches short of a tree, if you will. But Mr. Coldwell’s high jinx got me thinking, and it seems that nearly everybody has a story from the “good old days” in high school or college when some lame-brained enterprise got them into a little hot water with the law. Granted, at 49, Mr. Coldwell should be old enough to have left such shenanigans behind but perhaps he’s just a late bloomer. So to speak.
Fortunately, most of us don’t commit actual felonies while sewing our wild oats; we may pull a random stupid stunt in our youth and then go on to lead productive lives, with the possible exception of Geraldo Rivera. To illustrate my point, my family can boast of several examples of immature behavior:
Late one hot summer night, my girlfriends and I scrambled over the tall fence surrounding my hometown’s la-di-da country club to go skinny-dipping in the fancy swimming pool. We shed our clothing and dove into the water where, for about five minutes, we had the time of our 16-year-old lives. Soon a policeman was shining a gi-normous flashlight in our eyes, ordering us to exit the pool immediately. We gestured nervously at our garments heaped at the side of the pool. The mortified officer whirled around and proceeded to lecture us with his back turned while we slunk dripping out of the water and into our clothes.
My spouse was more inspired in high school than I. He and his buddies pulled an elaborate enactment of a mob “hit” in a seedy part of town loaded with bars and tipsy patrons – guaranteeing a substantial (albeit inebriated) audience for their prank. Cruising to the scene in a big, black Lincoln (borrowed from one of the dads), the boys dropped off one kid to stand on the corner and be the “murder victim.” While one boy pointed a pellet pistol out the car window, another kid set off a couple of firecrackers, and the victim “fell” at the noise. Two additional guys jumped out of the Lincoln, picked up the “victim,” deposited him in the trunk and they all sped away. The perpetrators were en route to the local drive-in to recount their brilliant hoax when they noticed the red lights of a police cruiser in the rearview mirror. The dressing-down my spouse received from his horrified parents was probably more painful than the stern reprimand from the judge who fined the boys for disorderly conduct.
Alas, our little apples didn’t fall too far from the tree. Daughter Number One inexplicably determined that carrying her driver’s license was unnecessary when she was 16. When the CHP officer who pulled her over for driving above the speed limit asked if she had a “valid” driver’s license, she burst into tears. In her panicked state she sobbed that she didn’t know if it was valid because it was at home. Finding her auto registration was no less traumatic. Opening her glove compartment, an avalanche of make-up and feminine products dumped out onto the floor. Handing the whole mess to the officer, she asked him to please find what he needed, which, thank heaven, he did.
A few years later, Daughter Number Two decided to ignore the “guy” following her as she sped up the hill to our home shortly after getting her driver’s license. Pulling rapidly into the garage, she exited her car as the officer stopped his vehicle in our driveway and put on his red light. My alarmed spouse, who’d been working in the garage, watched this scene unfold. In response to her father’s startled look, our little munchkin announced with a bit of teenage attitude, “I don’t know why he’s following me!” and proceeded to flounce on into the house. The officer explained to my spouse that Princess Lead Foot was “flying” up the hill and could have hit a deer. My husband invited our daughter back to the garage to speak with the officer who let her off with a lecture about safe driving.
And, finally, there’s my cousin who I’ll call “Mark” because, well, that’s his name and since he lives on the East Coast he’ll never know I told on him. He’d been partying with a group of college buddies and as often happens when consuming vast volumes of beer, relief stops became urgently necessary. Mark cleverly found some big bushes near a building. Hopping out of the car he proceeded to “water” the shrubs only to discover that his concealed potty place was a local bank equipped with automatic sensors that engaged “mid-stream” due to Mark’s traipsing about in the plants. The blasting, ear-piercing alarms alerted two off-duty policemen having coffee across the street. Mark spent the balance of his college career on a bicycle.
Come to think of it, dressing up like a tree and robbing a bank seems almost, well, normal.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at Ga*********@*ol.com.
