So as some of you know, and now more of you will, I drive a truck for a living. I drive a 26,000 pound GVW Ford F-650 Rollback (like the flatbed style tow trucks you see on the road). All day I had been doing little bullshit runs in a pickup truck and didn't even have to get into my bog truck until the last run of the day. I noticed something smelled, well lets just say it smelled a LITTLE off. Oh well its a work truck who knows, when I get back to the shop a coworker tells me I should go check my truck (the one I just got out of) says she heard someone talking and there might be something in my truck I would want to get out soon. Tells me it is a clam, or an oyster. I'm pissed and I go out and find a half clam under the passenger seat. Not funny. Had I not got it out that day who knows what my rig would have smelled like come Sat or Sunday.

I remembered when I got in my truck before the ride with the clam there was a Nalgene water bottle on the seat and a contract indicating someone had used my truck for a run down to one of the major fishing piers in the area. I recognize the bottle, so now I have a suspect. Dirka was my guy.

(Dirk and I on the back of my truck, the one that got the clam treatment.)

He has weekends off so I had to get him on Monday and I had to get him good. I work with a lot of dudes. If you don't know what it is like to work with a lot of dudes, it is kind of like working with a bunch of old ladies who gossip all the time. I know there is no chance these guys are going to be able to keep there mouths closed so, as they say I must do my dirt all by my lonely. Best way to fool your target is to fool everyone else at the same time.

So I go to the store and I buy four healthy sized fantail goldfish (well in a way I sort of scammed them, but that is a different story entirely), and brought them back to work Sunday afternoon. I made a big deal out of them, asked co-workers to help me name them and all. Every time they would ask what my plan was I'd just smile and leave it up to their imaginations. Then right before we left, I let them watch me pour some water into the water bottle and one of the fish, I added a little comic book style speech bubble that said "Where did my 3 friends go?" and I circled and highlighted the part of the receipt that showed that I had in fact gotten 4 fish. Then when we all left for the day, I made it cleat that I needed to go out to Dirks truck for a few minutes before going home .

As I left I tossed the empty fish bag on the ground near his truck.

The next day I showed up and saw the fish in the water bottle cruising around, living it up and I saw Dirka. He smiled, I just did my thing. Didn't want to let on that I was on to him if he didn't already know. He knew, and he was sweating it. I kept getting pulled aside by co-workers who would try to get some info from me. "Where are the other three?" or "Did you really put them in his truck?" and every time I would smile and say "Ya know, I just can't remember"

Finally, they started telling me I had to let Dirk off the hook, apparently he had emptied out his whole locker and gone through every single thing in there, pockets in his rain gear, old boots, backpack, he had gone through all 2 weeks of uniforms on the rack, and had gone trough his whole truck, top to bottom.

I laughed to myself while filling out some paperwork, thinking that I would have to let the cat out o the bag soon, before the guy goes crazy. Along comes Dirk, he looks a bit frazzled and all he can say is "Man you didn't kill those other 3 fish did you?" His face was red, he looked a bit stressed out to say the very least. I acted surprised and said "You really haven't found them yet?" and he told me that he had looked everywhere, and he meant EVERYWHERE but the heater vents in hsi truck. I smiled. He took off for his truck. I just asked if he wanted to know where the fish were. I told him I could save him the hassle of continuing his search. Trust me when I say the look on his face was classic, and then I told him the other 3 fish were in my dads aquarium. The empty fish bag was part of the scam, as was letting everyone see that I had 4 total fish, and even the smile when I was asked what I had done with my bag of fishies. I got em all, hook line and sinker (pun intended).


For the record, the fish in the water bottle is fine too. I went to the pet store and spent $40.00 on a nice bowl, a little plant, a cool skull and cross bones, some fish food and all so he can live like a king. I mean he doesn't need to know that he was part of a joke, we will keep that between Dirk and I.



p.s. Dirk named the fish Frank.