A few weeks after I turned 18, I was invited to leave high school. All my teachers complained of poor grades and blood shot eyes. I indeed was checked out and daydreaming of things to come.
Since all my friends were still in school all day, I started hanging out with this knucklehead a few years older than me who was always looking to make a buck.
Then along comes this not so brilliant idea of us (me) going into a well known, now defunct restaurant chain that he'd recently been fired from as a manager, yet he still had 'the keys'. The plan was that I'd go in and hide somewhere nd once everyone left I'd turn the alarm off and let him in the back door. We'd then clean out the quarters from the massive collection of video games and anything else. He estimated we'd split about 6K, so I was in.
The night came and just before close I went in and went looking for a place to hide.
I lol as I write this. There was only a few places and without being too descriptive, I ended up slipping behind a row of Skee Ball machines that I had just enough room to stand up behind. The machines were less than a foot from the wall so I had to stand there, reflect on my life's choices and just wait. I was wearing all black and had nothing but gloves.
The place would close any minute, and under an hour after close, the lights would all be off and I can make something happen.
I waited.
An hour had definitely past by.
The lights never went off, but a radio went on. WTF? I heard talking, they were close. Then I heard Axel Rose... him singing something unfamiliar, but catchy. This was the all night cleaning crew that came once a month... my lucky night. They brought with them the new
that was released earlier that day and played it the entire night on a loop. All night! I had to get out of there. It was now close to 2 am and I had been standing up behind these machines for over 5 hours. I waited until I didn't hear any voices, popped out from behind the row and made a break for the back exit door. The fact that an alarm didn't go off was amazing and I trotted out across the plaza parking lot and found my friend sitting in his car on the far side. That suuuuuckkked.
In the car we talked about what happened. The cleaning crew wouldn't be there the next night, I wasn't seen and I'm still looking at roughly 3 thousand bucks.
Let's go again.
The next night, I headed back into the restaurant and slipped behind those Skee ball machines yet again. It was dusty, dirty and I just wanted those lights to go off. Pray for darkness. This time, after about an hour they did and the place went quiet. I waited an extra 10 minutes to be safe and then came out of my hideaway.
As I was walking, maybe a foot or two away from the Skee ball machine I saw a little red light blinking up in the corner. I hopped into the bathroom to take a piss and then peeked around the corner, waving my hand slowly to see if I could, yep I did... blinked again. Motion detector all right. (I'll just ignore that
) . I made my way into the office using the key he gave me and then was told where to find the alarm key (sneaky place too). I went around the corner into the back hallway and into the broom closet to turn off the alarm as planned. The problem is I could not see.. too dark so I went back into the office trying to find matches, which somehow I did. Mind blowing there was some sitting on a desk. I went out, around and again to the back hallway. Lit a match, opened the alarm box and using the key, turned the light green. Done.
Now I let him in the back door, and we bag the loot!
As I took a few steps out of the broom closet, there was a very large man standing only a few feet away from me. Busted! He asked, "what are you doing here?" and I replied "I fell asleep in the kiddie tunnels and just trying to find my way out"... I asked him "what are YOU doing here?".. he replied, "answering a silent alarm', to which I put my hands up and said "don't get the wrong idea here", but the problem with all this was that I had on these thick garden gloves and wearing blackface. The large man grabbed me and put me up against the wall holding me there for a few seconds then saying to me … "don't you move" he then let me go, thinking I'd actually listen so he could walk a few feet over to the main power switch... misssssstake. I was gone. The restaurant lights came on as I was bolting around the corner, passed the office, through the arcade to my favorite emergency exit!
Busting through the door, I was behind all the strip mall stores, running hard for a minute I hid in high grass up along the freeway embankment. As I moved through the grass along the side of the plaza I could now see the front parking lot with 5-6 cop cars already outside the restaurant. Awesome response time. Behind me was a fence and a freeway overpass that I knew I had to cross over to get out of the area. Within seconds, two more cop cars zoomed across my path so I hesitated a moment and ran again... I approached an apartment complex on the other side, I knew I had to make my way to the farthest end of the complex, away from everything and start knocking doors... I told people my car broke down and that 'I needed to call a cab'. I eventually got these college kids to help and my cab drove past the circus going on in the nearby parking lot as we hit the road.
Long, expensive cab ride later I had the cab pull up to my house so I could go up to the door and get money from my mom to pay him as it was over a hundred bucks and I was broke. Not even a quarter lol.... so the cabbie pulls up and I hop out, walk up to the front door and bolt into the darkness. I didn't live there. I lived blocks away, suckaaaa... all I heard was tires screeching and some screaming.
Got back home. Never do that again.
Few weeks later I was in boot camp.
