Bruce A. Borders: June 2013

Monday, June 24, 2013

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, the saying goes. You do something nice for someone and inevitably, something will happen to make you wish you had just ignored them. Or, at the very least, make you wonder why you were so quick to help.

This is evident in the small things as well as bigger things in life. For instance: I’m sure everyone has, at some point, stopped to let a car out of a parking lot onto a busy road. Then, almost without fail, at the next light, they’ll go sailing right on through - as the light turns to red and there you’ll sit. That’s a small thing.

An example of something bigger would be the following scenario.

A neighbor lady shows up on your doorstep in the middle of the night, terrified and screaming that her husband is trying to kill her. You can hear the husband shouting and then you see him waving a gun around through the window of his house. The woman begs you to let her in and asks you to call the cops. Of course, you do. Good deed, right? Sure, except by the time the police arrive, she has decided she wants to go home. She tells the officers that none of what you told them on the phone is true and she has no idea what you are talking about. Now the cops are looking at you like you made it all up. (Yes, this actually happened to me). Another lesson in the maxim No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

The point is, if you help someone you may well end up being blamed for anything that goes wrong. I should know this by now and should have learned to just say no to doing good deeds. I don’t mean to give the impression that I’m some noble guy who goes out of his way to help people. I’m not. But human nature dictates certain responses and behavior. If someone is following close behind as you enter a store, you naturally hold the door for them, right? To let it slam in their face would just be rude. So, I have not learned to just say no.

Which is why a few minutes after pulling a large amount of paper towels out of a guy’s throat, and getting him breathing again, I found myself locked outside the car, on a deserted road, at night, with that same guy brandishing a knife, threatening to kill me. He said he had been trying to make a “statement,” and that I had interfered in his life. Uh, sure, if by interfering he meant prolonging it then I guess I’m guilty.

As you can obviously deduce, he did not kill me. And no, I didn’t kill him either. However, I did manage to get the knife away from him! And eventually, he calmed down - about the time the state police showed up on the scene. Although, not before telling the officer that I had “stolen” his knife. Really?

I did give the knife back - a few days later, very mindful of the fact that No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in print at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders #MiscarriageOfJustice #BruceABorders

Monday, June 17, 2013

Bank Robbery

America, the Land of Opportunity, where anyone can succeed. Where people are free to come up with ideas and turn these ideas into a nice profit. At least that’s what I was taught in school. Only problem is, sometimes even the best idea is completely worthless.

When I was a young kid, a scheming kid, I had the ultimate plan to get rich. The perfect plan - robbing a bank! Not the most original idea, I know. And not the most effective approach either. But with a little different twist, I was convinced my idea would work.

So, I went down to the local bank and studied their security, the building layout, and camera locations. I then spent several days observing the behavior patterns of the employees when they arrived to work and as they left. I then devised my strategy.

Before anyone gets the idea that I’m a criminal with a bank robbing history, I should clarify that I did NOT rob the bank. That was not on my agenda. Instead, I used my well thought out plan as material for a report at school. My teacher was duly impressed; first, that my plan might actually work and second, that I would reveal it.

But that was part of my grand scheme. I needed someone else’s opinion before I moved on. The fact that the teacher thought it would work gave me confidence to go to the next step.

Going back to the bank, I walked right over to the Bank President’s desk and asked to talk with him. For some reason he agreed to talk and I handed him a copy of my report. He read the details of how I would go about robbing his bank, at first with an amused smile. Then, the smile faded into a worried frown.

When he’d finished reading, he wanted to know why I’d given the paper to him. After assuring him that I had no intention of robbing his bank, that I was merely pointing out the possibility that existed by identifying the weak spots in his security, I expected him to offer me some kind of monetary reward.

And that’s where my “perfect” plan hit a snag. He didn’t seem to believe the bank should pay me anything. He said they already had a security firm, which took care of preventing bank robberies. Disappointed, I took my paper and left. My idea hadn’t been worth anything. There would be no payoff.

A few days later though, I noticed some remodeling going on at the bank, along with a few additional cameras being installed. There were other changes as well. Each of the changes were things I'd addressed. Of course, I asked the Bank President why he was making the modifications if my idea had been worthless. He said, “I didn’t say it was worthless or that it wouldn’t work; only that we weren’t paying you for it.”

Well, that was rather un-American, I thought! Obviously, my good idea was only worthless to me. So much for the Land of Opportunity - I couldn’t even make a profit off of bank robbery!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Follow The Money

Back in grade school, we watched a film on the journey of a dollar. A camera crew followed a dollar around as it made its way through a little town from one business to the next, from one person to another. Starting with a boy spending the dollar for a toy, people paid bills, or got paid, deposited money in the bank, withdrew money, and bought things at the store. At the end of the movie, the dollar ended up right back with the little boy who had spent it that morning. The same dollar.

The purpose of the film was to teach us about the economy. It did that very well. But I wasn’t concerned with economics - I wanted to try out this idea that I could get the same dollar back later. So, I marked up a few dollar bills and spent them. And then I did some more. And then more.

I patiently waited for my dollar bills to return. And then not so patiently. I started going to the store, purposefully using five and ten dollar bills to get as many ones as I could in change. After a year or so, I decided the film had been faked - and I was never going to get any of my dollars back.

Then we moved to another town and being older, I forgot all about my little project. That is, until I went to the bank one day to cash my paycheck. The teller counted out the money, placing a single dollar on the top of the larger bills. I couldn’t believe what I saw! There on the bill was my name! (That was how I’d marked the bills - by writing my name on them. Apparently, I wanted to make it extremely easy for the government to determine who was defacing the currency).

It had taken more than eight years but my experiment had finally worked! I was pretty excited and hopeful that more of “my” money would show up. Nope. No such luck. And to make matters worse, though I put the dollar away to keep from spending it, I lost it.

Out of the hundred or so bills I marked, that’s the only one I ever got back. So, a little help would be appreciated. If you happen to see any dollars with my name, feel free to send them to me!

Monday, June 3, 2013

My Nickel's Worth

I drink a lot of pop - soda for those of you who live in “that” part of the country. People tell me I should drink water instead, that it’s more healthy. Okay, but the way I like my water is carbonated, with sugar, flavoring, and caffeine. My entire family feels the same way and so, we drink a lot of pop.

As a result, we end up with a huge pile of cans and bottles. For those of you who may not know, in the state I live, there is a deposit on most beverage containers. We pay five cents at the time of purchase and then receive a refund when we return the bottles and cans to the store. In the old days, the cans could be bagged, taken to the store and a bottle boy would count them. It was pretty quick and efficient - and everyone except the bottle boy stayed clean too!

But these days, thanks to everyone always trying to make things “better,” there are machines to count the returns. The cans and bottles have to be hand-placed in the machine, one at a time, in order to be counted. It’s a pain, very time-consuming, and kind of gross. Some people don’t bother, but it’s my money and at five cents a can... Well, sometimes that adds up to a lot of cash. Remember, we drink a lot of pop.

From the time my son was three, returning the cans has been a job he and I did together. (For some reason, my wife and daughters didn’t see much fun in it). Every month or so, we’d load up the pickup and go to the store. He got the money, I just got dirty.

But then last summer, my son moved out on his own. I didn’t really feel too motivated about taking the cans in, and they piled up on the backyard deck for several months. This past weekend, I finally decided it was time. (Really, I just needed my deck back).

I picked the right time for the job. One of my daughters was visiting and she and my wife decided to go along to help. I’m glad they did, I’d probably still be at the store feeding the machine. Well, not quite, but even with their help, it took over an hour at the store.

An hour! For three people! An hour of tearing open plastic bags full of dirty, smelly, slimy, disgusting cans and bottles. That’s a LOT of cans and bottles! I went home and took a shower. And then it hit me; maybe I should drink more water!