Welcome To BS Friday

Welcome once again to BS Friday. You know the deal, I'll write it and you tell me if it's real or just plain old BS. Today's post is called: Some Friends Are Not Friends

Back when I was in high school, Pinball was a big deal. Arcades were popping up everywhere and those upright video games were pretty new. But we all still loved Pinball. We would even skip school to play. We would shovel snow, mow grass, paint walls and clean for people to get money to play Pinball. Then we would blow all our dough on gaming. It was a wondrous time to be alive. :)

One day we skipped school to go and play this new game that the local 7-11 had installed into their front window. It was called Tri-Zone. It was a great game. We hopped onto our bikes and made the journey, eagerly anticipating a day of screwing around. When we got there we immediately piled our quarters onto the glass, reserving the next few hours for just us. That was how you did it back then. You piled quarters on the machine to indicate to anyone that there was someone already in line to play next. Of course, remembering who was next was the tricky part. I have no idea who we thought would be interrupting our gaming since everyone else we knew went to school that day, but we did the ritual anyway.

We played for a while, getting the feel of the new machine, sucking down Pepsi and munching healthy breakfast items like Ho Hos and Pop Tarts. Oh yeah, life was good.

Soon we were getting longer turns. It was becoming easier to work the machine. You know what that means, right? Kids with time on their hands can find mischief anywhere. At one point, it was my turn and I was kicking the machines ass. It seemed like I could do nothing wrong. I heard my friends murmuring and giggling behind me about something but I was in the zone. I paid no attention.

Then one of them was stuffing something into my back pocket. He was saying that he wanted me to hold this thing for him. I was still engrossed in the awesome game I was having so I just said OK and kept going.

When my turn was finally over I turned around to find 2 clerks going on and on about something with one of the guys. I was wondering what was up. I soon found out. Apparently this one friend had decided it would be cool to shoplift a couple of those Bic Lighters. (None of us smoked so I still wonder about that choice.) But he had been seen and the clerks had called the Cops.

When the clerks started questioning the rest of us, I was back at the machine with my back toward them. They started asking me if I had stolen anything and the one clerk told the other I had been playing at the time. They looked me over and decided that I was clean, even though I knew my friend had stuffed something into my back pocket and I had a good idea what it was. But what was saving me was my keen fashion sense. I had on a pair of jeans we called “Flaps”. They were jeans with big pockets in the back with flaps that buttoned closed. The pockets were so big you couldn’t tell if anything was in there.

The distractions ruined the game and that’s when we decided to leave. Before the Cops showed up. The clerks wouldn’t let our shoplifter friend leave with us. As we were leaving we heard this big bang and some yelling. When we looked around, there was the thief running across the highway. He had slammed his was past the clerks and took off before the Cops came. We just kept on going.

A few blocks away I checked out what was in my back pocket and sure enough there was a nice new, stolen Bic lighter. Nice. We decided to destroy the evidence so we unwrapped it and smashed it to pieces. I had to remember to thank my ‘friend’ later for involving me in his crime spree.

Jerk.