Paticus' Past: Volume 3: The Armed Robbery...

Good times...Good times...

I realize that many of you are probably thinking that this is going to be some high octane tale of my involvement in a Michael Mann's "Heat" style armed robbery of a bank or museum or pet store or something...No ? None of you were thinking that ? You all thought that it was about Paticus himself being the robbee ? Damn, am I THAT boring ? Shit, man, none of you could have even feigned a belief that i was a badass robber ? Stop laughing...I mean it, stop laughing, or I will turn this blog around, so help me...You think i won't do it ?

Okay, that's better. Now I can get on with the story.

Well, as you all seem to have already guessed, I was not the robber, I was the robbee. Well, I was sort of the robbee surrogate, the guy was not taking MY money, but he was using me to take my employer's money.

Let me provide you with some background. I had been working in an office, but that turned kinda ugly(loooooong story- for another post...or two...or five) and after I finally extricated myself from there, I decided that I would take a job at The Wherehouse, a music/video store. This was in Los Angeles, by the way. I was working at a store that was about three blocks from my house. I got promoted and transferred to a store that was in the neighboring city of Santa Monica.
The day after my last day at the L.A. store, they got robbed. I felt like I had dodged a bullet(no pun intended-or was there?). I should have guessed that i would not be so lucky.

It was a couple of weeks later, and it was a normal day. A gentleman dressed in a red suit with a tan driving cap on, asks me to check on something for him. I tell him sure, and then I walk up the little ramp to the cashier/computer counter...As I am walking across to the computer, I hear the footsteps behind me...I now know what's going to happen...

I turn around, and he has his coat open, and is showing me his gun. I will be honest, I do not remember all the dialogue. I know there was some variation on him telling me to be cool, and all that. he asked how many people were working, and I told him that is was me and two others, the girl at the front of the store, and the girl in the back room. He crossed over to me and put the gun in my ribs, and then in my back as he got behind me. then he told me that we were going to go get the other two employees.

We emptied the register at the front of the store, and then that employee came with us, walking in front of me. I still had the gun in my back. We went to the back room and invited the other employee on our stroll.

A little aside here. In recounting this story, I have had my courage called into question. Mostly because this guy robbed a few more Wherehouses, and then moved onto Tower Records. At one of the Tower Records(so the story goes), he ran into a Vietnam Vet who knocked his ass out, and tied him up with duct tape. When I told someone this, they said,"Wow, did you ever think of knocking him out ?" to which I replied, "Not really." To which he replied"Yeah, I guess that would take someone brave." I just kinda smiled at him. I guess he's right. That would require someone brave, and I guess that someone was not me. But, what I will say in my cowardly defense, is that he had robbed other stores, and it seemed like if we let him take the cash from the store, he would leave. that seemed like the best plan to me. Beyond that, I would rather live the rest of my life as a coward than to have died ten years ago protecting a corporation's money.

Now, back to the robbery memory already in progress.

It was now time to empty the safe. Now, I was always the kid in high school who could never get his locker open. These damn safes were the same way. Add to that the fact that I had only been there a few days, and I felt like I was the new guy on the bomb squad, and I had the hiccups.

We all went to the safe,and I told him that the combination to the safe was in my wallet, and I didn't know it. He told me to take out my wallet slowly, which I did, and then I put the combination into the safe. For some reason, it worked on the first try, and I gave him the loot. Then, he reminded me to put my wallet back in my pocket. That was odd.

I figured we were just about done, and then he uttered the words that(pardon the cliche) made my blood run cold. I never really grasped the full meaning of that phrase until that moment, because, man, it happened. This is one if the things I remember exactly.

Snazzy Dressed Robber: Now, we're gonna go get the security tape.

Overweight, Sweaty Hairy Hippie Assistant Manager: We don't have a security tape.

This was the absolute truth. the store had cameras in the ceiling, but they didn't work. I had no idea how he was going to take this. It was the first time his demeanor changed.

Snazzy Dressed Robber: Don't FUCK with me.

For a moment, I thought we were going to die. I turned slightly to him.

Overweight,Sweaty, Hairy Hippie Assistant Manager: Dude, I SWEAR to you. The cameras aren't hooked up to ANYTHING. We can go back and I'll show you.

I don't know whether he saw the abject fear in my face or what, but he believed me. He walked us into the back of the store, and he had us sit on the floor in the back room. He took the phone from back there, and he told us to stay there for a half hour. Then he left.

About ten minutes later, the UPS guy came back, and he asked if anyone was working. I asked if there was a guy out there in a red suit, and he said, "No, why ?" And I answered,"Because he just robbed us."

Did I mention that there were people shopping while this was going on ? I went out to the floor, and went behind the counter to call the police. A woman walks up to the counter with a CD in her hand.
"Yeah, I want to buy this." she says.
"Not right now, we just got robbed." I said.
"You did not."
"We fucking did too."
"Well, I want to pay with a credit card anyway."
"Get out." I said. Then we got all the folks out of the store, and waited for the police.

I took a few days off, then went back to work. I lasted 3 days, I think, and then I quit. I decided to go back to office work.

As I mentioned, the guy got caught. I(among many others) testified against him, and he got convicted on all sorts of charges for each of the robberies, Kidnapping(walking us around the store), false imprisonment(putting us in the back room), and some others that I don't recall. He went to jail for a loong time.

I also found out that he used a BB gun, so I guess that's another one in the coward column.


Well, there it is: The Tale Of the (sort of) Armed Robbery.

Post # 500: AKA- Paticus' Past Volume 2: The Car Fire...

That's right- This is the 500th post here at old Sandwich Flats. I kind of went back and forth over what this post should consist of, and I think that I am going to write a regular post, the second volume of the "Paticus' Past" series, which has been receiving rave reviews from all over the globe(it's apparently huuuuge in Belgium). So here we go, and get ready for 500 more...

Paticus' Past Volume 2: The Car Fire.(With Pictures !!)

The car fire...That's a fun story. It was 1994. My Special Lady had been accepted to the Graduate Program in History at a prestigious California University in Los Angeles. We talked about what we were going to do, and though I was heartbroken to leave my burgeoning career as a Fuel Allotment engineer at the Texaco station, I knew that love would see me through the pain, and I decided that we would both move to Los Angeles. She to pursue a History degree, and I to become a famous Hollywood screenwriter.

We decided that we would need a car to live in Los Angeles. Fortunately, I owned a car, a blue 1984 Chevy Monte Carlo. It had started out as my parent's car(they had bought it when I was a senior in high school after I had totalled their '77 Impala- another fun story, but one for another time), but when I went off to college, my Dad had parked it in the garage. When I returned from college, he told me I could have it, so I registered it and insured it, and got it running. The first two were easy, the last one, not so much. It took my dear friend P. the mechanic at the Texaco where I was the Fuel Allotment Engineer many hours to get old Betsy running. He really did a magnificent job, but there was this long process to getting it started: I had to start it, then let it idle on high for a two minutes, then hit the gas once, then let it idle in the middle range for a few minutes, then hit the gas again, and then I was good to go.

This system worked for a few months. Then, I had an interesting ride home one night. I was driving home from work, and I had to stop at a red light. I pushed on the brake, but the car did not seem to want to stop. I pushed a bit harder, and it stopped. I didn't really think much of it...But then it happened at the next red light as well. And I noticed that the car seemed to start to move as soon as I took my foot off of the brake.

After I turned onto my street( a flat road), I stopped the car, and then took my foot off of the gas. The car started to roll on it's own. Then, it started to accelerate... I watched the speedometer, and it was at 30 mph after about 100 feet ! I backed up, pulled the car into my parent;'s driveway and parked it. It was clearly no longer a safe car for the road. I think I heard her sigh when I turned her off.(Boy, how many women have I had to say THAT about ? Am I right people, huh ? High five !! High five !)

So, as you might guess, it did not seem to be the best idea to try and drive Betsy across country. I decided that an upgrade was definitely necessary. This is how I met Althea. Althea was a 1988 Chrysler LeBaron GT Turbo Coupe. Thankfully, Althea is only a peripheral character in this tale. Althea's own tale is one for another time, another post.
This post is about Betsy. Now, in order to purchase Althea, I had to trade Betsy in. The day I first saw Althea, it was raining, and for obvious reasons, I had not driven Betsy to the car lot, so I agreed to test drive the LeBaron the next day,and bring Betsy in so they could assess her for a trade. I was not expecting to get much, I would just be happy to not have to deal with having to dispose of the car, quite frankly.

The next day, I brought her in, warned them about her "problem", and tested the LeBaron. I loved it, and decided to buy it. The salesman came to me about the trade in, and was sorry, but he could only give me $750.00 for it. I almost kissed him. That was $749.00 more than it was worth!! The cigarette lighter DID still work.

They had to fix the radio on the LeBaron and wash it and all, so they said they would call me in a few days. I went home, parked Betsy in the driveway, and took my parents' car to work.

About an hour and a half later, my Dad stopped in to get some fuel, and I engineered his fuel allotment. I told him about the $750.00 for the car before he could say anything. This is how he responded to my good news.

"Didn't you hear the fire whistle ?"

"No." I answered, wondering what this could possibly have to do with my financial good fortune.

"Oh. The car caught fire in the driveway. It's gone."

"What ?"

"Your car caught fire and burned in the driveway."

"Oh. is everyone okay ? The house ?"

"Oh yeah. It buckled the siding on the neighbor's house, but otherwise it was just the car. The cops are going to come by at lunch. They want to talk to you about it. I guess it went up so fast, they think it's a suspicious fire."
"Oh, okay." Then he left. I worked for another hour or so, and then drove home for lunch. This is what I found in the driveway.













Under The Hood












That's the air filter sitting on the front seat. They threw it through the windshield whilst they were putting out the fire.










The last one is a picture of the back seat, and that is a burned plush Ren Hoek that hung in the window by suction cups. Poor little guy. I still have him in a box. Chad, the Patron Saint of Action and Adventure(a G.I Joe type action figure that sat on the dashboard in a skiing outfit) also perished in the fire, though I heard tales that he was heroically trying to rescue the Snapple bottle.


So, quite a sight, huh ? The cop came by my parents house, and he questioned me about the fire. Luckily, I did not have fire insurance on the car, or I certainly would have gone to jail. As soon as I told him that I did not have fire insurance in it, and that in fact I had just traded it in for 750 dollars, he quickly determined that it was not arson, and he went on his way.

It's really quite funny now, and in fact, I don't really remember taking it all that badly at the time. I was just really glad it didn't burn either my parents' or the neighbor's house, and I'm certainly glad that nobody was in it.(though apparently, the fireman thought for a short time that someone was inside, I don't know whether that was due to a miscommunication on the 911 call, or if they in fact saw Chad moving around inside sacrificing himself to try and save the Snapple bottle(the cap was a coupon for a free Snapple). I guess we'll never know.


I miss Chad. I miss Betsy, too. Though I couldn't help thinking that she was like Christine, the car from the Stephen King book, and she was so upset at the prospect of living without her Paticus that she killed herself rather than let someone else drive her. And the more I thought about it, My Special Lady did seem to get stuck by seat springs sometimes, and her seat belt would sometimes stick too tight. Was Betsy just madly in love with me ? It's certainly possible, I am a charming and magnetic personality. But that's all rubber stuck to the driveway now.


So, there you have it...The story of the car fire. It did open up possibilities for future posts- Althea's tale, my solo drive across this great nation of ours, the other time that a cop showed up at my door to ask about my involvement in a crime. So many stories...I think I might have another 500 posts in me. You game ?