The world is full of criminals, at least among folks who read this column

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my early attempts to enter into a life of crime. I confessed to several misdemeanors, most committed while I was still a child and had yet to hear about what happens to guys like me in prison.

I was worried some readers might pen angry letters condemning me for my youthful malfeasance; I was instead inundated with confessions, some of which make my own crimes seem fairly petty.

I’d like to share some of those letters with you now. Since I’m a little fuzzy on that whole statute of limitations thing and can’t afford to lose any readers to the penal system, I’ll be using pseudonyms rather than the letter-writers’ real names. Don’t worry folks, I won’t rat you out to the coppers.

One of my favorite stories came from online reader “Francine,” who, as a 15-year-old girl swiped an unmentionable (I tried to get her to mention it, but she wouldn’t) undergarment while her friend and accomplice purchased an identical item. The next day, Francine returned the stolen frou-frou for cash, using her friend’s receipt.

Unfortunately, her accomplice’s mother discovered the purchased undergarment and demanded the girl take it back. (I don’t know what this undergarment was, but it must have been racy indeed to get all these moms in such an uproar.)

Having no receipt, the accomplice was forced to implicate Francine. A brief phone conversation between mothers landed Francine and her ill-gotten booty (by which I mean “cash” – just because we’re talking underwear here doesn’t mean this column is suddenly rated R) back at the lingerie store.

The store couldn’t accept the money, however, because the stolen item had been returned with a valid receipt. It would, they said, mess up their inventory.

Francine didn’t say whether her mother let her keep the loot, but my guess would be no.

Then there’s “Waldo,” who sent me a letter in which he confessed to stealing his father’s car in the middle of the night on his 15th birthday, crashing it into a tree, then walking home and climbing back into bed, bruised but otherwise unharmed.

Waldo’s old man died two years ago at the age of 87 having never heard his son’s confession. According to Waldo – now in his 60’s – his letter to me was the first time he’d mentioned the incident to anyone. The guilt had been haunting him for decades. If I were a priest I’d grant absolution.

Several readers confessed to swiping CDs – older readers swiped LPs or cassettes. Nowadays, music swiping is handled mostly online, I think, but apparently, the practice has been popular since Edison invented the phonograph.

Finally, one reader called me out on one of my own crimes – the comic book I confessed to stealing from Reagan’s Pharmacy on Michigan Street when I was in fourth grade.

Tommy (I’m using his real name, since unlike the rest of us, he’s not a crook) married one of Mr. Reagan’s granddaughters. Tommy pointed out that the revenue lost from that stolen comic book, along with regularly compounded interest, was money lost from his wife’s inheritance. The amount I now owe him will put his daughter through college, he says.

I’m not sure what collection methods Tommy plans to use, but I’ve started locking my doors at night.

It’s true folks, crime doesn’t pay.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Let’s personalize daylight savings time

Just got done “springing ahead” all the clocks in the Taylor home. It took a while, since somebody around here (hint: not me or the dog) is obsessed with punctuality. The Lovely Mrs. Taylor has three clocks in the master bedroom, one in each bathroom, one in the guestroom, two in the kitchen, one in the dining room, one in my office, two in her office and two in the living room. There are also clocks in the garage and basement.

By the time I get done with the annual springing ahead, it’s usually time to “fall back” again.

I’m not sure why we do it. There just aren’t that many farm kids who need those extra hours to help bring in the crops anymore, not even around my Mayberry-esque community.

But someone – I have no idea who – says move those clocks ahead, and so I do. In the fall they tell me to move them back again and I do that, too, no questions asked.

I’m beginning to think that whoever is making the call is just messing with our heads, seeing how long we’ll continue to blindly follow the herd. Could even be a secret military mind control experiment, you never know.

A lot of people have called for the abolition of daylight savings time in recent years. I’m not one of them. In fact, I’m in favor of taking the whole premise to the next level, something I call Personal Emergency Savings Time, or “PEST.”

PEST would work like this: instead of following some government-sponsored dictum, each individual could decide when – or if – to spring ahead or fall back an hour. The decision would be dictated not by crop plantings or harvests, but by an individual’s own requirements.

The only caveat would be that at the end of the year the number of hours in each of the past 365 days would have to balance out to “about” 24.

I know it sounds confusing, but let me muddy up the waters further with a couple “for instances.”

It’s 4 p.m. Friday and you’re at work; the minute hand is crawling. But wait! You just remembered, today is the day you’re “springing ahead.” Kazaam! It’s 5 and you’re out the door. You can make up that hour later in the day, when you’re hanging with friends around the backyard barbecue having a couple beers. Time to call it a night? Heck, no! Time to “fall back.” All of a sudden you have time for one more frosty one and another plate of ribs.

The next night you order pizza from that place that gives it to you free if they take more than a half-hour to get it to your front door. When the delivery guy arrives, you explain that you’ve just “sprung ahead” and so, technically, it has taken him an hour and 20 minutes to deliver your pie.

You can even show him your watch, so he knows you’re not trying to cheat him.

The possibilities are endless. Early morning staff meetings? Fall back. Discussions with insurance salesmen? Spring ahead. Dances with pretty girls? Fall back. Doing the Hokey Pokey with your Great Aunt Edna? Spring ahead.

You get the idea. The things we love will last longer, the things we don’t won’t last as long.

I can’t believe nobody’s thought of this before now.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Selling defective merchandise is, unfortunately, a ‘known issue’

“It’s a known issue.”

I first heard that phrase five years ago at a computer repair shop on Grand Rapids’ west side. The person saying it was one of the store’s techs, describing a problem I was having with my new computer, purchased less than a month earlier.

The previous day I had been writing merrily along; the sun was shining, birds were singing, words were flowing. Then – pfffftttt! (That’s the actual sound the computer made) – no picture; just a blank, gray screen.

After an unfruitful hour on the phone with Apple’s tech support department, I was told to take the computer to a local repair shop. I did.

“What do you mean, ‘It’s a known issue?’” I asked.

“It’s a known issue,” the tech guy repeated.

“Known by whom?”

The tech guy gave me that withering, superior look, the one computer geeks seem capable of churning out by the sack full. “Known by Apple, I guess,” he said.

“Then why didn’t they fix it before they sold me the computer?” I said.

The tech guy shrugged and stacked my computer alongside two dozen identical units waiting to receive the exact same repair procedure.

“Next Thursday,” he said, handing me a ticket.

My next encounter with a “known issue” was software related. A music production program I had just installed kept freezing up at the same point for no apparent reason. Each time this happened, I lost about an hour’s work.

After dropping nearly $300 on this program, I figured it should be bug free and – with a list of my favorite profanity in front of me – I phoned the company’s tech department to tell them so.

After listening to 90 minutes of “The Girl from Ipanema” interspersed with recorded announcements telling me how important my call was, I was told, “It’s a known issue.”

“What do I do to fix it?” I said.

“We’re working on an update,” the tech guy said.

“Meanwhile?” I asked

“Um, the update should be out early next year,” the tech guy said. “That should take care of the problem.”

“Meanwhile?” I asked again.

The tech guy suggested I save my work every couple minutes so that when – not if, but when – the program froze up, at least I wouldn’t have to start over from scratch.

Apparently, if an issue is “known,” then everybody’s supposed to be cool with it. If I buy a car and one of the “known issues” is that the tires fall off at speeds over 35 mph, then – according to tech guy logic – I should just shut up and drive under 34 until they come out with next year’s model.

My most recent known issue encounter arose shortly after I purchased a Blackberry and signed up for the requisite two-year contract. At first, everything was groovy. The phone worked perfectly.

Then suddenly and for no apparent reason, the unit would no longer allow me to text photos. Since I rarely spot Bigfoot, Elvis or white cops beating Rodney King, I wasn’t overly concerned with this limitation. It took weeks before I got around to dropping by the phone store to speak with them about it.

“It’s a known issue with that model,” the tech girl said.

“If you knew it didn’t work, why didn’t you mention it to me a month ago when I was buying the phone?” I asked. “I wouldn’t have purchased it.”

The tech girl looked at me like I had just answered my own question, which, I suppose, I had.

My phone bill’s due in two days, but I think I’ll wait a week to pay it. Maybe two. When they call to ask why it’s late, I have an answer.

It’s a known issue.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I can no longer hide from my criminal past

Unlike former President Nixon, I admit am a crook. Until now I’ve done my best to conceal my sordid past, but I’m not getting any younger; maybe it’s time to come clean and let the warrants fall where they may.

So, confession time. In my life, I have stolen the following items: a tiny flashlight, batteries for that flashlight, a Superman comic book, a television set and several dozen milk bottles. I have also been known to eat a grape from the grocery store bin if I thought no one was watching.

The flashlight theft was my first intentional caper. I was 10 years old, and for some reason, I decided I simply had to have one of those little pen lights, the sort powered by a single double-A battery. Using Mission Impossible-like stealth and planning, I managed to make it out of Cook’s Five & Dime with the light concealed in my jacket pocket.

It wasn’t until I was out on the sidewalk that I realized batteries weren’t included. Unaware of the criminal’s maxim about never returning to the scene of the crime, I went back in to swipe a battery and was immediately apprehended.

The store manager called my old man. Retribution was swift and Draconian. When I had sufficiently recovered, I was marched before Father Mike at St. Isadore’s, where I confessed my sins, asked forgiveness and recited several Hail Mary’s. I was happy to be kneeling; sitting down was not an option.

This effectively ended my crime spree, until age 12 or so, when I swiped a Superman comic book from Reagan’s Pharmacy. I was never caught, but I was so scared of being found out that I never really enjoyed the comic. At the time, I’d never heard the phrase “Catch 22,” but I understood its meaning.

The television theft, decades later, was an accident. Honest. I was at the mall two days before Christmas with my two small children in tow. I was laden with packages, both kids were whining and I could think of nothing but finishing up and getting out.

The last item on my list was a portable TV. I found one at the mall’s big “anchor” store, stuck it under one arm, and marched out the door, right past the security guard.

I loaded kids, packages, and the TV into my broken down Volvo, drove home, unloaded the whole mess and spent the evening watching shows on my new television. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had shoplifted the thing.

Remembering all too well my encounter 20 years earlier with Father Mike, I drove back to the mall, explained what had happened, and paid for the set. The mall people acted like I was nuts. I had, after all, made a clean getaway. They did not understand Catholic guilt.

Also unintentional was my very first crime, involving the milk bottles. It went down the summer after my ninth birthday. The bottles were the old fashioned, returnable glass kind. I spent the entire summer removing empties from the racks behind Booth’s Diary on Michigan Street and walking them around to the front of the store, where I turned them in for the 5-cent deposit and purchased ice cream.

I couldn’t figure out why the dairy would give me good money for something they were just going to throw out anyway, but I wasn’t going to rock the boat.

My dad did, however, when he discovered what I’d been doing. Though the punishment was less stringent, the trip to see Father Mike was just as mortifying.

I’ve somehow managed to walk the straight and narrow since the TV escapade; over 20 years now. But it’s only a matter of time before I slip. After all, nobody’s watching those grapes.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.