John Smith is a retired state employee who lives on Rescue Road and likes to go exploring.
My middle name should be "Gullible." I believe nearly everything my friends tell me, on account of people around here seldom ever tell a fib.
With the exception of politics, I believe what I see, hear or read in the news media. I may not like most of the news, but I trust the media to report events with unbiased integrity and honestly.
I can't say the same for the internet.
Sometimes you'll get on one site, find an interesting link to another site, then another until you're lost somewhere in cyberspace. I somehow wound up at a site talking about how the new series of pennies that should be out soon.
It seems the mint made so much money off collectors snapping up the state quarters and buffalo nickels that it decided to create a special penny for each county in the U.S. They had me going pretty good, and I began to wonder what my county's penny would look like.
Then I became suspicious.
The site contended the only hitch so far was the design of the official coin holder. You know, those blue fold-up pieces of cardboard with a special hole for each coin. It seems the U.S. contains several thousand counties, and the government designers were trying to find a way to limit the size of the penny holder to less then 8x10 feet so you could mount it on a wall of your house.
I had read enough. I checked another site for verification, and, sure enough, the first site was a big, fat fib.
I should have learned a lesson, but not ol' Mr. Gullible…
A recipe for success?
I found a site on how to make your own glow-in-the-dark nightlights using chemicals readily available in most homes.
According to the site, the glow sticks you buy at toy stores contain hydrogen peroxide and a tube of borax. When you break the tube, the borax combines with the peroxide, and energy is released in the form of light. They presented a simple set of instructions.
You pour quart jar about two-thirds full of peroxide, and then gently stir in small amounts of borax until the stuff begins to glow. They even showed a photo of a box of Twenty-mule Mule Team Borax being sprinkled into a jar.
The site claimed you could make several jars and light up a campsite at night. I had to try that experiment right away.
I snatched up my car keys and wallet, ran out the door and sped off to the nearest grocery store. The borax was found on a shelf next to the washing powders, and the peroxide stashed next to the rubbing alcohol. I paid for the materials and rushed home in a fever.
Things got better. I found out my granddaughter, Madison, was spending the night. I would put on a show for her.
When it got dark, I told Madi that we were going to learn some magic. Naturally, we had to go outside with a dim flashlight, cut some sticks off a peach tree and craft them into wands.
Next we had to think up some spells to place on the wands and then figure out incantations to mutter while combining the stuff I'd bought to make the glow potion. Suspense built until the moment of truth finally arrived.
Magic fizzles
I informed Madi the powder was dried vampire bats and the liquid was juices from the brains of jellyfish. Madi muttered incantations and tapped the jar with a wand as I gently dribbled out the powdered bats while slowly stirring the juice.
We waited for that magic glow.
Nothing happened.
We poured in more powder.
Nothing.
We decided to give it some time and come back later. Nothing.
We poured in powder and stirred until it looked like we had made up a batch of biscuit dough, then were forced to give up. I wondered what the "dough" would do if used in the next load of clothes washing, but was afraid to try.
Madi was sorely disappointed, and I'll hear about it the rest of my life: "Paw-paw, you remember that time…"
I had violated the golden rule of presenting a demonstration - always practice it at least once prior to the event just to make sure it works.
Maybe I used the wrong strength of peroxide, but it is commonly sold only in 3- and 6-percent solutions. Anything stronger would eat the skin off your bones and is frequently used as a rocket fuel.
I searched other sites for more information, and, despite using numerous combinations of key words, couldn't find anything related.
I had been duped by someone having fun with gullible people.
Up in smoke
Believe it or not, I found another dubious site.
A man had craved the aroma and taste of fine cigars but had no money. Not to be deterred, he goes into a tobacco store and uses his credit card to purchase a velvet-lined mahogany box full of very rare and very expensive cigars.
Then he insured the smokes against theft and fire.
A week later, before making the first premium payment, all of his smokes had gone up in, well, smoke. He filed an insurance claim on account of the cigars had been destroyed by a series of small fires.
The insurance company refused to pay, so the man takes it to court. The judge decided the policy did not define an "unacceptable" fire, and the insurance company had to cough up $17,000.
The next day the man cashed the check and was immediately arrested on 24 counts of arson. The DA used the man's testimony from the lawsuit to prove he had deliberately set fire to property he knew was insured.
This time the judge awarded the man two years in prison and a $24,000.
If that happened to me, the judge would probably throw in some extra time for fraud, even though everyone knows I would never commit fraud - that is, not without checking with the Brindlee Mountain Brain Trust first.
BMBT's staff is well experienced in all aspects of fraud and capable of providing fine advice. I called it up and asked what the trust members would have done.
Turns out they would put the new cigars on an internet auction and claim they had been used by President Bill Clinton but never smoked. You could double your investment and use the profit to buy a box of smokes for yourself.
But I never liked cigars anyway.
