I Accidentally Slept Through a Bank Robbery
Hey guys? What’s up? How’s your Wednesday? Thursday? Sweet.
I’m writing this particular blog to let everyone know that I’m a coward who’s still never saved anyone’s life or thwarted a crime in progress. Despite my best efforts, I’ve continuously come up short in my vigilante ventures. I regret to inform you that on Tuesday I slept through a bank robbery at my local Santander branch.
I guess we can start from the beginning. It was 8:59 am on the morning of April 17th, 2018. I blinked my eyes awake to find an open copy of the novel “Holes” on my chest. (I’ve been reading it since 2005 and am determined to finish.)
I checked my watch and saw 9:02. How did I sleep so late you ask? Maybe I was up until 2 AM finishing up some work. Maybe I stayed up to listen to the President address our fair nation. Shit, maybe I put a bunch of Jolly Ranchers in a Twisted Tea to make a “Jolly Tea”– got the spins and passed out reading Louis Sachar’s best selling novel, “Holes”. I guess we’ll never really know.
Anyway, I had to get a move on. I wanted to deposit a fat stack of gambling money currency that I earned legally, and paid taxes on, into my bank account.
CUT TO: 10:25 am
It’s now 10:25 am and I’m ready to leave the house. I’ve completed my morning ritual (smoke a cigarette, watch the series finale of Boy Meets World, and call my 8th grade science teacher just to hang up on him) and am ready for the day.
After grabbing a quick Iced Coffee (one cream and two salts) I pull up to the bank. I reach down my pants to grab the stack of money that I legally earned and pay taxes on that’s taped to the inside of my upper thigh. I put the cash in the interior pocket of my patriots windbreaker and head for the door of the bank.
As I make my way to the entrance, I notice an old woman also exiting her vehicle. She’s much closer to the bank door than I am which means she will get in line before me. She’s probably going to deposit 48 one dollar bills and I’m going to have to stand in line for no less than 9 minutes. I pick up my pace so I can beat her to the door.
She sees me out of the corner of her eye and speeds up her hobble. I break out into a sprightly jog, get inside position, and beat her to the door. She does not look pleased. I grab the handle to the bank and am met with a locked door. What the fuck?, I say out loud in front of the old woman. She mirrors my sentiment. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with all these ones?” she says to me.
We turn around to see two police cars parked to the left of the building. I look to my adversary turned friend and say, “I bet there was a robbery or something.” ————“Yeah, no duh”, she responds. We both stare inside of the locked bank. We won’t be visiting this branch of Santander today.
It wasn’t until I got home later that I discovered me and that old fucking lady had just missed a bank robbery! Some guy had passed a note to the teller demanding money 14 minutes before me and that old fucking lady showed up at the bank. I had narrowly missed becoming a hero.
—-I could have gotten the key to the city. I could have stopped a crime in progress. I could have noticed the sketchy looking kid passing the note to the teller and intervened. I could have hurled that old woman’s frail body at the criminal and saved the day. I could have sold the rights to the story and in 2025 there could have been a nationwide release of “Steak Jones and A Dirty Old Lady Save the Day” (working title).
But it didn’t play out like that. All because the tale of Stanley Yelnats (the main character in the literary classic “Holes”) makes me so sleepy that I slept a couple of minutes too late.
PLEASE SEE ACTUAL BANK ROBBERY ARTICLE BELOW.
-Steak Jones