Someone mentioned America’s Dumbest Criminals the other day at coffee, and it reminded me of a story from highschool. Some of you might have heard this already, but I’m going to tell it anyway.

Grade 9, I’m in my Grade 10 algebra class (not advanced or anything, but I managed to take algebra 9 in grade 8 etc…) Anyway, the phone in the class rings, and the teacher taps me on the shoulder, telling me that I have to go to the principals office.

At this point, I’m pretty nervous. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but being called to the principals office is pretty daunting, especially when you’re in grade 9 (the highschools here go from grade 9-12, so I was in my first year at that school.) When I got to the principal’s office, I was kind of interrogated about an event that happened in shop class, but they were pretty vague about it, and I didn’t have a clue what they were getting at. I suppose that was a good thing, since that meant that I wasn’t involved.

Turns out that one of my classmates had stolen money out of the shop teacher’s wallet, during class. I don’t remember the exact amount, but we’ll call it $150 US. The shop teacher was apparently going to buy some supplies from a US vendor or something strange like that - for whatever reason, he had a wad of US bills in his wallet, prior to our class, and did not have a wad of US bills in his wallet after our class.

After interrogating everyone in our class, they hadn’t determined who the culprit was, though in retrospect I think they probably had a pretty good idea. Anyway, fast forward a couple of days, and a certain individual attempts to exchange US money for Canadian money at the school cafeteria. Not only that, but he tried to exchange the exact same dollar amount that had gone missing from the shop teacher’s wallet. Not only that, but this individual was in my class. Not only that, but when they approached his parents about it, they found all kinds of shop tools with the school’s name on them at the kid’s house. Truly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Nice guy though, just had a bit of a thieving problem (apparently)

After that, shop class was like a lockdown. We were doing the electronics part of the class, and I don’t think a single person in the class finished their project, because we had to ask for permission to move our chair, and sign out the air that we were breathing. Seemed odd at the time, cause the guilty party was no longer in the class, and it still seems odd now.

If not for that event, I would likely have wound up an electrical engineer or something, but instead I wound up in Computers. I likely wouldn’t have taken Latin, and wouldn’t have met Erin, and all kinds of very important things wouldn’t have happened at all, and my life would likely be very very different.

It’s funny how you can find those “TSN Turning Points” in life.

Simpsons quote of the day: “I’m sure Einstein turned himself a lot of colours before he invented the lightbulb.” - Homer