Working for a criminal defense attorney, I meet all kinds of people and hear all kinds of stories. Most of our clients are very nice people, in spite of the trouble they’re in. One, however, really stands out.

She was on at least her second or third DUI and just couldn’t understand why the police and the courts made such a big deal out of it. She insisted that “everyone” drinks and drives and she was sure I could not name a single person who had not done so.

But the clincher was when she told me that drinking and driving couldn’t possibly be illegal because, after all, bars have parking lots! I thought that was the punch line to a joke, but she was dead serious.

At around 0430 one morning, I woke up because I thought I heard someone knocking on my front door. I waited a few moments, and as there was no further noise, I decided that I must have been dreaming.

However, when I got up about an hour later, I found a card through my door which claimed to be from the police, asking me to contact the station immediately but with no explanation about why.

I phoned the number given on the card, but the operator on the police system had no details about why it had been left and could only make a note that I had called. In the absence of any further information, I decided to shower and get ready for work, so obviously, that was when they called back with an utterly bizarre story.

They had received a report from a mental health charity that someone had phoned them who seemed very unstable and implied that they were going to harm themselves and had already hurt someone else. All the charity’s rep could get out of them was a first name, house number, and postcode. They passed this information to the police and, through some sort of cosmic fluke, the postcode and house number lined up with my address.

The police were pretty sure it was a hoax — hence I didn’t get my door broken down — but did ask to come out and search my house just in case. They arrived about half an hour later and had a quick look around — waking my wife and baby — but left after a quick apology, and that was the last I heard of it. 

So, the long and short of it was I had to go to work and tell my boss that I was late because the police were searching my house for dead bodies. Somehow, I managed to get through the day without Human Resources involvement, but I got some mileage out of that story.

I’m a police officer. We are driving a patrol around the area when a car driving on the opposite side of the road coming toward us starts flashing its lights. Thinking the driver might need assistance, we stop in the road, our window level with his.

Me: “Is there a problem, sir?”

Man: “Why haven’t you got your lights on?”

Me: “Why would we need our lights on, sir?”

Man: “It’s the law; you have to have them on.”

It’s an overcast day, a little grey, but visibility is good and road conditions are good. In the UK, the highway code states that headlights must be used when visibility is seriously reduced to under 100 meters. However, this is nothing like today’s conditions.

Me: “Sir, the highway code states visibility of fewer than 100 meters.”

Man: “Yeah, so you should have your lights on, then!”

Me: “Pull over, sir, and we can talk.”

He is getting pretty aggressive, almost spitting at us. Something just doesn’t seem right, so we pull over to the side of the road. My partner drives out 100 meters and I point him out to the man.

Me: “He is around the distance you need to have lights on. Can you see the car clearly?”

Man: *Slightly smug* “No!”

Me: “Sir, do you have a set of prescription glasses you need to wear while driving?”

Man: “Well, I, err… left them at home.”

We got into it and eventually discovered that the man had severe sight problems, and he must wear strong glasses as part of his insurance.

Judging by his prescription, the guy was a massive risk on the road; if a child ran out in front of him, he wouldn’t have seen them until it was too late. With two schools between us and his house, it was a good job we caught him.

He argued and couldn’t see what he did wrong but he still ended up with points on his licence and a fine.

This story is part of our Best Of April 2021 roundup!

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One company that I contract with has an app that must be used for scheduling. The downside to this is that when the app is used to call the customer, they now have your cell phone number.

I can’t use an office phone, so I got a prepaid “burner” phone with no ties to me or my name, even with a different area code from where I live.

The phone doesn’t ring; it’s only used for outbound calls and the ringer is on vibrate. 

Tonight, I was sitting at my desk doing paperwork and the phone started to vibe. Odd.

I answered it and a woman announced that she was calling to save me money on my car insurance. Uh-huh.

I lowered my voice — and I’ve already got a deep voice — and said, “You’ve called a drug dealer’s burner phone. Do you really want to do this?”

She hung up. I must remember that one!

I work for a popular chain dollar store. I wasn’t on shift when the incident initially went down but came on shift as the footage was being reviewed.

It would seem that a couple of thieves decided to come into our store to steal. Wearing oversized clothes, they split up and met back at the clothing section. They started taking packages of socks, underwear, and shirts off the pegs and stuffing them down their pants!

On the playback, we could clearly see them doing this! We all, cops included, laughed as we watched them do the shake-the-legs-and-hop-up-and-down dance, trying to make the stuff settle further. The thieves then left the store, got in their car, and drove away.

The rest of the story is compiled from info that trickled in later.

Our thieves were pulled over by the town cops just a few blocks away for — drum roll, please — not wearing seat belts! The police then saw all the stolen merchandise and no bags. So they started asking questions.

One of the thieves decided that the best course of action was to bolt from the car, because that’s not suspicious at all when asked, “Have you folks been shopping?”

The police promptly arrested the driver. The genius who ran? He did not get far and was promptly caught when his oversized pants fell down! The thieves were soon read their rights and tucked into the back of the patrol car.

Then, the radio crackled to life: a report came in that a dollar store just a few blocks away had been robbed. Wonder of wonders, the suspiciously obtained products all had a [Dollar Store] logo on them!

In the end, we got everything back, saving us almost $100 in inventory. We also now have a story that will go down as a store legend to the following generations of staff.