In Retrospect

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/07/thong.bandits.ap/index.html

Now, having lived in what basically amounted to an immigrant housing project for the last couple years of college, I, at the risk of stereotyping, have found Hispanic people living in America to be fun, easy going, and resourceful (generally speaking). Based on my limited experience I would say that they, as a whole, usually don't take themselves too seriously, and they can often figure out how to do something cheaper, faster, and better than you would ordinarily think possible.

Case in point - one time I had a car that I needed to get emissions testing done for. It was a mess of a car (Pontiac Sunbird - only slightly less trouble than the Fiero was), and it had several issues in the engine department and wouldn't pass inspection for anything. I took it to a local shop where the guy started listing off what would need doing - adjust the idle, replace some vacuum tubing, something was up with the distributor, etc, etc.

Total cost: $Hundreds
He can fit me in: Monday

Being a poor teenager, and discouraged at this news, I decided to look around for alternatives. I needed to pass emissions to be able to drive my car, after all, and there was no way I could meet that bill for at least a few months. Now, why a seven-yr old coupe needs to pass emissions and a mostly-empty diesel-spewing bus doesn't is beyond me, but that's a separate rant. After driving around for a while I saw a non-descript service station of sorts that se habla'd Espanol, and so I decided to investigate. Pablo (yes, he really was named Pablo) came out with his friend (whose name I do not recall), and looked over the car with his bud and then came over to me and said something like this (and I am dead serious here):

Pablo: 'Okay, so we feex the car like theees, okay. You leeesin now.'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'I am going to file theeese connektors, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then my essay over there, he eez going to [something, I don't know].'
Me (Well, it sounded like car talk): 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then I take this screw, and tweeeest it in the tubing, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'Don't let the inspector guy see this screw, or you will be fucked, si?'
Me: 'Si. Si. Cuanto es?'
Pablo: '¿Qué? '
Me (embarassed): 'Uhh, sorry, umm.. How much will it be, and when can you guys do the work?'
Pablo: 'Eet's already done essay, eets $20.'

And the inspectors never found the screw, or any of the other 'modifications' made in the engine, and I passed emissions, and all was well. For $20! Can you beat that?!

And there are other examples I could give where I have seen or been a part of schemes that involved similar 'simplification' of ordinarily complex tasks - from buying beer without ID to landscaping tricks to SAT preparation. So it strikes me as a bit, well, odd that the story above ever came to pass. In other words, what the hell were they thinking?

I figure that the conversation must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, and that's how these two ended up in jail hoping to hell that their fellow inmates don't discover that they like to dress in women's underwear. Maybe the conversation went something like this:

Guy #1: 'Man, essay, I could reeeelly go for some cervezas right now.'
Guy #2: 'Yeah man, but we don't got no money, man.'
Guy #1: 'I don't get paid until Wednesday man, what are we going to do?'
Guy #2: 'Hey man, I got a peestola, we could go rob the store and then get some beers after, man.'
Guy #1: 'Yeah, we could do that. But how will we disguise ourselves, essay?'
Guy #2: 'We could wear your seeester's panties on our faces!(?)'
Guy #1: 'Yeah man, that sounds like a good idea!' <---- Here's where it must have gone wrong.
Guy #2: 'Let's go.'

Like it or not, the conversation had to go something like that. Maybe we could substitute baby formula and hard times for beers and carelessness, but at some point the panties had to be brought up and agreed upon. Now, as much as I am a fan of thongs (God bless them), I would not try to conceal my face with one - well, unless maybe it was some kind of kinky litt --- you know what, I'll finish that thought privately.... Anyway, if I was forced to choose underwear for the job then I would probably cut eye holes in some granny panties and just go for it - but you can't possibly be constrained to underwear as your only concealment option right? I get if you're not a regular criminal (good for you!) and as such don't own a couple ski masks, but what about hankerchiefs? What about shop rags? What about rolling up a turtleneck and putting on a hat? What about a Halloween mask? What about wrapping an ace-bandage around your head - ala the mummy? What about a combination of scratch and sniff stickers and sun-glasses? What about using a goddamned shopping bag and cutting eye-holes in it - you could probably even find one of those in the parking lot or in the dumpster outside. Something had to be better than thongs, right guys? I mean, come on... Well... I guess everything gets clearer in retrospect, doesn't it? ;)