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10/28/2004: "Happy Halloween (Day Two)"

Was A Teenage Psychopath

Maybe it's because "Mischief Night" is just around the corner, but last
night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I asked myself a question: "What's
the most blatantly evil thing I've ever done?"

I had a lot of incidents to choose from, most of I committed between the
ages of 13 and 19 - the "Moral Cavity Prone Years", as I like to call them.
Maybe, in Freudian terms, I hadn't yet developed my superego, or maybe -
for you fans of B.F. Skinner - it was an environmental thing (you know,
growing up in the 'burbs where no one has a moral compass), but - either
way - the teenage version of me was a pretty screwed up individual who
did a lot of terrible, terrible things.

But, without a doubt, the most blatantly evil thing that I did,
as a teenagers, was to play one of the lead roles in convincing the
"Greenball" family that they'd inherited a mansion. Yes, if ever there was
a case of the punishment being harsher than the crime; it was the
"Greenball Incident."

One Saturday night, in late April, my friend Smitty and I were sitting in
the living room of his folk's house, watching TV, when suddenly we heard
a thumping sound against the front door. We ran to the front window just
in time to see two of the Greenball (I'm still not sure what the family's
real last name was. Everybody and I mean everybody in town
called them the "Greenballs". ) kids disappear into their backyard. The
thumping sound, we soon discovered, had been caused by an egg hitting the
door.

After Smitty and I cleaned up the mess, Smitty went to the kitchen, reached
into the knife drawer, produced what appeared to be a small machete, and
announced in a very matter-of-fact that the time hade come to Tate-Labianca
the Greenballs. This marked the third time that year that Smitty's house
had been egged.

It was hard to argue with Smitty's point (and not just because he was
holding a rather large butcher knife. Truth be told, I had it with the
Greenballs, too. Just a week before, I'd accidentally kicked a soccer ball
into the Greenball's yard. Mrs. Greenball ran out of the house, scooped up
the soccer and vanished back inside - but not before shouting "Goddamn
kids, you're not getting this back!" That autumn, Mr. Greenball ripped down
all of our posters for Smitty's backyard carnival to benefit MS (It seemed
that Mr. Greenball became angry when he learned that MS did not stand for
Multiple Sclerosis, but Mark Smith - AKA Smitty ) So, you see, hacking them
to death really didn't seem like that radical of a solution at the time.

Now, the only reason that I'm not telling this story from a prison
cell is because, at the time, I was reading a book about the CIA's psy-ops
division. It took a few minutes, but I managed to convince Smitty of the
merits that a psychological attack would have over a physical
attack.

Eventually Smitty concurred, adding "and it'll save of a lot of fucking
around in court." So we set to work (with the help of a bong and Led
Zeppelin III) on hatching a plan. It took us the rest of the weekend, but
eventually we hit upon something that we hoped would work.

On Monday afternoon, we called Mrs. Greenball from the payphone in our High
School. Since I ran the risk of bursting out laughing, Smitty had the honor
of actually speaking to the hyper housewife.

Smitty performed flawlessly. He managed to convince Mrs. Greenball that a
distant (and completely imaginary) Aunt of hers who lived the Allentown
area had passed away and that he was an estate lawyer who was in charge of
executing her will.

I swear to Hubbard that Mrs. Greenball told Smitty the she remembered
visiting the old lady, who had only ever existed in Smitty's and my
imaginations, when she was a girl. That's when Smitty, as he later told me,
knew that no matter how thickly he poured it on, Mrs. Greenball was gonna
buy it.

"I can only hope," Smitty deadpanned into the receiver, "that you grief
will be somewhat tempered by the knowledge that she must've thought highly
of you because she left you her house."

"A house!"

"Yes, it's a rather large property - I really don't like to use words like
mansion…but I guess that you could certainly call it one."

Like an expert bass fisherman, Smitty continued to reel Mrs. Greenball in.
He promised to mail her directions to the house (er, mansion) and gave her
his word that he would meet her, her husband, and their four children there
on Saturday afternoon. After he hung up, Smitty and I raced off to the
school's newspaper office to compose the letter and fake the Allentown
cancellation on the envelope. On Tuesday morning we slipped the letter into
Greenball's mailbox.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Greenball loudly informed all of the customers in
Smitty's family's store that she had inherited a mansion. "Did anybody hear
anything about the Greenball's inheriting a mansion?" Mrs. Smith asked that
night at dinner, causing her eldest son to nearly choke to death.

I stayed over at Smitty's house that Friday night. On Saturday we awoke in
to watch the delighted Greenballs load their four kids (all singing "We've
got a mansion, we've got a mansion.") into their station wagon and embark
on the three hour trip to a fictitious address in Allentown. It was about
10 o'clock in the morning.

Around 9 pm, Smitty and I watched the Greenballs station wagon crawl into
their driveway. They must've driven around the Allentown area for quite
some time. Although the Greenballs were never the smartest of people, they
were smart enough to realize that they had been the butt of terrible joke.

As they exited the car, the Greenball's only daughter (an unwashed, surly
girl in early adolescence) said something that we couldn't hear, but which
caused her mother to slap her.

Although the Greenballs probably never definitely figured out who was
behind the hoax, it's telling that Smitty's house was never egged again.




Earlier today, I stopped by Select Smart to see which presidential
candidate would be best for me. Here are the results:


1. Cobb, David - Green Party (94%)
2. Nader, Ralph - Independent (90%)
3. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (84%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (66%)
5. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (33%)
6. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (20%)
7. Bush, President George W. - Republican (10%)

Replies: 9 Comments

on Thursday, October 28th, crapmonkey said

that was pretty evil...and funny.

on Thursday, October 28th, Rodney said

THIS JUST IN...

The Fort Miflin piece will air on FOX 29 on Friday morning between 6 and 7 am. So all of you farmers and garbagemen can check it out.

on Thursday, October 28th, Paul Kircher said

Hey Rodney,

That Select Smart was pretty cool, here were my results. I think it was such a close race they did'nt even give me a number 1

Your Results:

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%) Click here for info
2. Cobb, David - Green Party (69%) Click here for info
3. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (62%) Click here for info
4. Nader, Ralph - Independent (61%) Click
5. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (57%)
6. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (51%)
7. Bush, President George W. - Republican (23%)
8. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (18%)

on Friday, October 29th, Chris said

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6357736/

I know how much you like
Bill O'Reilly, so when i saw this, I thought of you ^_^

As you may know, I'm not totally above doing thing against the law that I believe (at the time) are not morally wrong, but aside from that, I can really relate to this instance.

One time classmates in 3rd grade decided that they wanted to have an open lot (which we used to play such loving and fun games as football and kill the man in) still of use to them, even though a family had bought the property and wanted to build a house their.

Me, being a fan of Nintendo games (Goonies II, and Castlevania) (both of which had a form of a molotiv coctail in them) (which at the time I had only heard of from movies, tv, and the news), and the house next door being made of flammable wood, after all the kids were so pissed off about it I sort of casually mentioned 'well, if you really want to do something about it...'

Now I suppose what is more interesting is, ... I still don't know what a molotiv coctail is made of, other than a rag, and flammable liquid. (i assume gas?)

so, i just filled an empty non-alcoholic beer bottle up with water and some food colouring, and salted a rag, and slipped it in the bottle.

(mind you, I really didn't care much about football, and there were other places to play 'kill the man').

so, me and a group of the neighborhood kids were in my yard, in running and throwing reach of the target, and they got frightened, and were like 'are we really going to do this?'

This was MY first lesson on people saying one thing, but not really feeling it, or believing in it.

Of course, I probably knew that, since i was holding a bottle of water, but since somebody asked me if I knew how to make a bomb, and I just said 'it's not that hard...'... I suppose I wasn't totally telling the truth either.

So, the house was built, and they proved to be okay neighbors, with a batting cage and 6-9 sons and daughters (I 'think' they were catholic, not sure...) and one son (after being pressured to hell to be a great sportsman) made it to some end of season game and won, I think as a quarterback, not sure.

I was in I think 4th to 6th grade, i forget. will have to look up when 'Goonies II' for NES came out.

on Friday, October 29th, chris said

1987...

i still forget what year i was in though -.-

on Friday, October 29th, razlerja said

As a devotee of the period, I provide the following as historical information only.

Molitov cocktail:

In a glass or pottery bottle (preferably vodka for tradition) add 1/3 motor oil. Fill most of the rest with gasoline or diesel. It should be layered with the oil on the bottom. Top off with something lite which wicks well, like kerosene or alcohol. Soak a wick usually a cloth rag or tightly packed straw, with the same as the 'topping'. When striking a hard surface (traditionally a PzKfw III or IV) the bottle will break ignighting the gas/oil mixture. The oil, being more viscus, will stick better to the surface and burn longer. Needless to say, this his HIGHLY dangerous. Since there are rarely any PzKfw's around today, there is NO NEED to try this at home.

on Friday, October 29th, Jackalope said

I've done a shitload of evil things in my life. I won't pretend to even try to rank them.

During my "Moral Cavity Prone Years," I had a job that required me to be up REALLY early. One night, I returned home late and inebriated. My front yard was totally TP'ed. I assumed it was done by my best friend who happened to live across the street. The next morning, again VERY EARLY, I found my tires and lugnuts made into an altar on my front porch with my car up on blocks. I was late for work and even more in the mood for revenge on my best friend. I worked at a golf club and even during October there were things to do. However, the pool had been winterized some weeks ago and we'd had a freeze the night before. A curious squirrel had crawled into the pool for water and drowned. I fished the carcass out and put it in a garbage bag. I put the bag in my trunk, bent on revenge. The following night, I took a few candles, a piece of charcoal and drew a pentagram on my friend's front sidewalk. I burned the candles on the points. I then made a noose and hung the squirrel carcass over the pentagram. It was a classic Satanic ritual, except I never practiced Satanism. When my buddy and his family returned home, his mom freaked and called the cops. I had to explain and then get my boss to explain to the cops that the squirrel was dead prior to the hanging to get off animal cruelty charges. My buddy's mom was so pissed I wasn't welcomed over for six months.

The irony is that my buddy wasn't responsible for my house's vadalism. It was some of my football buddys and they'd been interurpted when I'd come home the night before and decided to finish the job by putting my car up on blocks.

on Saturday, October 30th, caffiene23 said

Yeah, when I took that candidate test my #1 test was theoretical, and then David Cobb was #2, and Nader was #3.

I'm still voting Nader.

on Saturday, October 30th, caffiene23 said

I once hid my friend's fake pussy in his bathroom at a kegger he had once. The next day I told him where I hid it so he could retrieve it. Only thing is, he didn't retrieve it, and when his parents came home from their vacation his mother found it. One night my friend went home and on his bed there was his fake vagina with a sticky note on it: "DAVE, WHAT IS THIS?!"