I wish I was a little bit taller

I learned a lot of things throughout life. I’ve talked about some one them in the past.

Today marks the anniversary (kind of) of one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. I say kind of because I don’t remember the exact date, I just remember that it was some day in between the month of April (9 years ago).

My cousin and I were pretty much like brothers for a while during my teen years. We got into trouble countless times. I remember helping his friends steal a folder filled with rare Pokémon cards (shut up, we were 13) from a geek that lived down the street from my grandmothers house. We also took his Gameboy.

I actually feel pretty guilty for doing that. My job was to distract the kid while the other guys ran into his room and grabbed what they could. I talked to the poor kid about his GameBoy while my friends went inside to, "use the restroom". Make sure this is playing in the background while you’re reading this part. He was so naive and innocent. He knew nothing of the cruelty in this world. All he wanted was some friends. Someone to talk to, someone to play games with, someone to have his back. Instead he got a taste of evil.

I put his GameBoy in my pocket when he wasn't looking. My friends ran out of his house yelling, “Go, go, go!” He looked at me with a look of confusion. I felt like Skeet Ulrich in As Good as It Gets when Simon notices that he has been betrayed by Vincent. There was that moment of wtf as I betrayed his trust. We ran. They put the folder inside of a plastic bag, buried it in my cousin's backyard, and placed a crate on top of it.

Did we steal social security cards? Did we steal bank statements from Enron? My friends went out of control with their paranoia. They eventually fought over the cards. Whatever. I was happy with the GameBoy.

We did stupid shit like this ever since I could remember. The older we got, the more trouble we got into. Let’s fast forward two years after the Pokémon incident.

My sister was pretty liberal with her car. She’d let my cousin and I joy ride all the time around my neighborhood. Classic role model. Ever heard of Ghost Riding the Whip? We invented that. Kind of. We used to drive about 10-15 MPH, hop out and walk alongside of the car or sit on top of the roof or stand on top of the hood while the other person recorded the stupidity with a video camera.

Here’s where it gets really stupid. My sister had a Ford Focus. This car (like a lot of cars) had a latch inside of the trunk that allowed you to open the trunk from the inside. Amazing news to stupid kids like ourselves. We got a kick out of scaring unsuspecting people at street corners, shopping plazas, wherever. We sometimes threw water balloons and eggs as well. We were jerks.

One day we go out for a little joy ride with my sister. My sister is driving and my cousin is riding shotgun. Riding shotgun. I wonder who came up with that. Anyway, I’m in the trunk.

We begin at a Shell gas station. My cousin gives me the signal (2 loud thumps) and I open the trunk and yell out something like ‘AHHH!’ or ‘BWUAH!!!’. I'm a child...yes, I know. People would freak out. This one guy in particular with gold grills yelled out when I scared him. I don’t think you’re allowed to scream like that with grills in your mouth.

So we’re driving along scaring people and I hear a police siren. I pause for a second and think to myself, “no...hehehe.” Then the siren becomes louder and louder as it gets closer. Then I hear multiple squad cars. Now I’m saying ‘not good, not good’ 198 times repeatedly to myself. Then a cop yells out from his bullhorn, “PULL OVER AND TURN OFF THE VEHICLE. SLOWLY THROW THE KEYS OUTSIDE OF THE CAR! DRIVER, SLOWLY OPEN THE DOOR FROM THE OUTSIDE WITH YOUR LEFT HAND!”. By this point I’m having a heart attack and convincing God how much I’ll change my ways if he prevents the cops from Rodney King-ing me.

Then…silence.

I hear nothing but radio dispatching. Then I hear keys jiggling and a cop opens the trunk. I see 5 police officers with their guns drawn at me. They see a chubby teen curled into the fetal position. I said, "Hi." I think they all simultaneously yelled expletives at me and made me get out of the trunk.

There were two cops that spoke to me at the scene. Good cop, bad cop. Bad cop was this 5 foot nothing Caucasian dude that used my leg as a soccer ball when I didn't spread my legs far enough when he asked me to (pause). Bad cop wanted me to spend the weekend in jail or as he eloquently put it: We should lock your stupid asses up for the weekend so bubba can make you funny boys laugh! Fucking Morons!.

Good cop was this huge black dude that looked something like Jason Taylor, yay for the ladies. He explained to us that they received a call from a lady saying that she saw a dead body in the trunk of a blue Ford Focus. Yeah. There were 9 squad cars from my count. I didn't have a belt on during this whole ordeal and Bad cop didn't give me a chance to pull up my pants. So I was standing in the middle of an intersection in cuffs with pants halfway down my ass. And of course that day was laundry day so I had on tighty whitey's. Great. I never had been beeped at so much by drivers passing by. Now I know how hot women feel like when pervs honk at them. Kinda.

They let us go with a warning. Bad cop apparently wanted me to get butt raped. Fuck the bad cop. As we drove off, Power 96 (radio station) was playing ‘Wish by Skee-lo’. I felt like dedicating it to the bad cop but I really didn’t want to meet bubba.