Pennsylvania Man Broke Into Ex’s Home, Glued Refrigerator Shut: Police

Pennsylvania Man Broke Into Ex’s Home, Glued Refrigerator Shut: Police. Something has to be done about this heinous crime. This unspeakable crime has to stop, and it has to stop right now. Call in the FBI for assistance, they can use all that high tech gear, that the FBI has laying around the local field office.

Have you ever been a victim of this terrible crime? I bet it happened something like this… You’re coming home from a tough day at the office, construction site, factory, or anywhere actually. All you have been looking forward to is a nice ice cold beer, or two, or three, and a nice bite to eat. You can almost taste it, as you’ve been thinking about it, all the way home. You know what I’m talking about right?

You race into the house, kick off your shoes on the run, and slide into the kitchen and make a really slick stop right in front of the refrigerator. You reach for the handle, and pull…Hmmm, maybe it’s stuck, you pull again, even harder, Uggghhhhh! Nothing, the door just won’t open. You naturally start inspecting around the edge of the refrigerator and you notice some hard, yellowish residue, that looks like it may have dripped from the door seal. You slowly come to the realization that the door’s not stuck at all, OMG!!! some fiend, has glued the door shut. NOoooooo! you yell, as you slowly slide down the refrigerator door, into a crumpled heap on the cool kitchen floor, sobbing softly, and shaking uncontrollably.

The Serial Refrigerator Door Sealer… has struck again. As you slowly come to your senses, you pull out your cell and dial 911. (The 911 call was edited, for the time allotted)

911 – What is your emergency?
You – (sobbing) I just came home and discovered my refrigerator door glued shut
911 – OMG.. What? What is your address? Calm down.
911 – Just stay calm, I have several units rolling, they should be there in less than 5 minutes.
You – Thank you sooooo much, I, I, feel… (You hear sirens just down the street) The’re here , Thanks
911 – You’re welcome, just hang in there, everything’s going to be OK.

You stagger to the door, still dazed from your ordeal, and open the front door. You can’t believe your eyes…

A sea of flashing lights, maybe 26 in all. There are Police cars, Sheriffs cars, SWAT team, FBI, Fire Department, as well as several unmarked cars and SUV’s. There is a sea of flashing red and blue lights, as far as the eye can see, in front of the house, in the driveway, on the front lawn, parked in the flower beds, everywhere. There’s even two of those news vans with those tall masts up, and camera crews getting ready.

Several officers run up to you and escort you from the front door. Several uniformed officers start shouting questions at once……Many more, rush into the house, guns drawn. The next thing you know everything is turning black, the last thing you remember is sliding down onto the soft grass.

Did I get it about right?  Yes?……..Really?

What the f–k is wrong with you? This absurd news headline was nothing more than a story about a spurned ex, getting even, by going into the house when the victim wasn’t home  and for whatever reason decided to glue her refrigerator door shut, as well as one of the kitchen drawers. The rest of it I just made up. Somehow this made it onto one of the national news sites. (Good for me anyway), Somehow this is NEWS. Hell, in my time, I’ve pulled way better practical jokes then that. Nobody, ever called the Police, and it certainly never made the national NEWS. (At least, not that I am aware of).

Let’s talk about practical jokes for a minute. I am a really, really, good practical joker, I never start it, but if someone else steps over the line…Well, all bets are off. You want to hear about some of my best escapades? I can tell you about a few of my best ones, the statute of limitations was up long, long ago, besides, maybe I just made these up as well. I guess you will have to be the judge of that.

First of all, a good practical joke doe’s not ever, injure anyone, in anyway. Some practical jokes are deadly serious, but the person on the receiving end gets the point. Some practical jokes are revenge for a serious wrong.  A well thought out practical joke produces positive, practical results, or as a minimum, makes for a great freaking story.

Here’s a good example of a deadly serious one.  I once lived right next door to a fairly attractive young woman. She was a few years younger than me. I never dated her, or anything like that, not my type at all. She was just a neighbor, that I kind of watched over, to make sure that she was OK. She was a really little naive about life.

Anyway, one weekend she had a huge fight with her then boyfriend. Through the wall, I could hear lot’s of yelling, and things being thrown around. The fight seemed to stop, just as fast as it started. This struck me as rather unusual, as she was always very quiet, and the boyfriend seemed to be a nice polite kid.

The next day I saw her outside, and I was horrified by what I saw. She had a black eye, and bruises on her upper arm, in the shape of a hand. She explained she was trying to break up with the guy, and he wasn’t getting the message. This is when I hatched my plan to get rid of the abusive boyfriend, without any trouble.

I found out where the boyfriend lived, acquired a nice velvet ring box and a 357 magnum bullet. I cut out words and letters out of a magazine that spelled out: ” hIT – hER – aGAIN – AND – tHE – nEXT – ONE – wONT – cOME – tHROUGH – tHE – MAIL, gO – aWAY – qUIETLY – aND – I – wILL – FORGET aBOUT – tHE – wHOLE – tHING”

Yes, this was just like any of those kidnapping/extortion movies, that’s where I got the idea from. Of course, I made sure there was no fingerprints on anything I touched, just in case. I placed the bullet inside the nice velvet ring box, along with the note. I wrapped it carefully in a nice box,  addressed the package (typed of course), put on the proper postage, and dropped it into one of those old type blue corner mailboxes. Remember those big blue mail drop off boxes?  After about four days, I never saw him again. Problem solved.

Here’s one for revenge. I once lived in this boarding house type building for a few months. It used to be an old college dorm actually. The landlord/Manager was an absolute a–hole. He had two main rules. No overnight guests and if the rent was more than 3 days late, you were evicted with no questions asked.. period, end of story.

The rent was actually pretty cheap and I made fairly good money so this was never an issue. Besides, I needed a place to live quickly, due to no fault of my own, and this situation suited my needs perfectly until I found a more permanent solution. This was the dark ages, long before ATM machines, or direct deposit.

I deposited my paycheck on a Friday near the end of the month at my usual bank, a very large national bank by the way. These were the days when banks were only open between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. The exact hours that if you worked a regular 9-5 job, you were forced to deposit your check at lunch time. There was always a long line.

Anyway, I deposited my check on a Friday, and wrote my rent check the following Monday on the first of the month. I dropped my rent check off in the lock box, life was good. On Thursday, of that same week I arrived home to my room, and discovered an envelope slid under my door, with an eviction notice enclosed, stating I had 48 hours to get out, because my rent check had bounced for insufficient funds. The very next day, Friday, I went to the bank armed with my deposit receipt to find out what happened, I had plenty of money to make the rent, and then some, so I had no idea what happened.

It turns out that the bank had deposited my payroll check into someone else’s account by accident. The bank immediately rectified the situation and I had all my money in my account in a matter of minutes. I spoke to the bank manager and explained that I needed a letter from them stating that the bounced check was their fault, so I wouldn’t be evicted. You are not going to believe this, but the bank manager refused, due to potential liability issues. Turns out that I had a friend call me, knowing I needed a place, and his roommate was moving out over the weekend. I moved in there on Sunday.

I wasn’t done with the bank, not yet. Even though everything worked out for the best, I still felt very wronged, all because of the bank’s error. I felt the very least they could have done was to write me a note explaining what happened, and that it was no fault of my own that the rent check bounced. But the bank didn’t feel the same way I did.

For my revenge, I waited for several weeks. Remember, revenge is a dish best served cold. I had a safety deposit box at the bank that I got free when I opened my account. I used to keep valuables like jewelry, my birth certificate, emergency cash, etc. in the box. Banks have this elaborate protocol to access your safety deposit box. For those of you who don’t know, there are two different keys, the bank has one, you have the other.

The safety deposit box is inside a vault. You used to tell the bank employee your safety deposit box number, and show identification. The person at the bank would use their key to open open one of the locks on the locking panel located on this huge wall of safety deposit boxes, and I used my key to open the other lock. She opened the vault panel, and I removed my safety deposit box, and place it upon a table. The bank employee would then leave to give you some privacy. You get the idea right.

Anyway, for my revenge, I purchased a really nice fresh trout at the fish market down the street, it was like two pounds. I had it inside a bag, placed inside the inner pocket of my coat. I accessed my safety deposit box, as I described above. I emptied everything out of my safety deposit box, and placed everything inside my pockets. I took the fresh trout out of the bag, and placed it inside the safety deposit box. I closed the box. I pushed the button to summon the bank employee. I placed my fish laden safety deposit box back into the armored slot, which it came from, I turned my key in the lock and removed it, and she did the same thing with her key. I wished her a nice day and left the bank.

I only had about $32.00 or so left in my checking account which I left there, and never went back. I immediately opened up another checking and savings account at another bank, a community bank this time, located just down the street, and banked with them from then on. Trust me, they were a lot nicer to me anyway.

I figure that it was about three days or so, before the fish that I placed inside my safety deposit box really started to get odoriferous. I am pretty sure that the smell just got worse over the next couple of weeks thereafter.

Keep in mind it takes a court order to open someones safety deposit box. So, it’s not like they could really do much about it. Besides there was like 500 safety deposit boxes inside this vault area anyway. Which one smelled like rotting fish???  I never heard anything from them, not ever. I never went back to that bank, and I moved out of State about a year or so later. To this day I still refuse to do any business with this big bank for anything, not then, not now, not ever.

Now, just a good ol’ practical joke. I once had a room mate For this purpose let’s just say his name was John. (The name was changed to protect the ignorant). We rented the 2nd floor of this house in the Northeast. The house had two bedrooms directly across the hall from each other, it had a really large living room, a nice sized kitchen and a full bathroom. This was one of of those houses that had a set of pull down stairs in the ceiling of the hallway, leading to the attic where you could store boxes or stuff like that.

I collected unusual, eclectic type things, as a matter of fact I still do. Anyway, John worked nights and I worked days. One Friday evening, I was sitting in my room with the door open and I was dusting some of the unusual things in my room. I was in the middle of dusting my Ouija Board, then John came home from work. John stopped at my room to talk and noticed the Ouija Board. John freaked out, and started lecturing me, on how those things bring evil into the house, and I need to get rid of it right away. John actually believed that crap. I just laughed him off and John went into his room and shut his door. It started me thinking though.

The next day was Saturday. As soon as I heard John coming up the stairs, I grabbed the Ouija Board and started pretending like I was using it. Once again, John freaked out, and stormed into his room, slamming the door behind him. This was when I dreamed up the worlds greatest practical joke.

Monday, at lunch time, I went to the hardware store and bought a roll of fishing line, a heavy lead fishing weight, and several small screw in eye hooks. After work I went into my room, and poked a small hole into my ceiling with an ice pick, in a spot against the wall, in the corner. Next, I pushed the fishing line into the small hole, up into the attic.I went up into the attic, and pulled the line through. I placed the small eye hooks into the roof rafters all the way across the hallway and ended up right over John’s bedroom to a spot directly over his bed. I threaded the fishing line through the eye hooks, and attached the lead weight on the end.

Now, try to picture this. I had the fishing line, with the weight attached on the end, so I could bounce it on one of the ceiling joists directly above John’s bed. When I pulled on the fishing line in my room I could bounce the lead weight on the ceiling joist, directly over Jacks bed. This would make a fairly loud thumping noise.

The next evening, when Jack came home from work, the first thing he asked was if I had gotten rid of the Ouija Board. I told him of course not, and accused him of being childish and superstitious. He was really pissed, and went into his room to watch TV. I waited like two hours until I could see his bedroom light go off, I could see the light from the crack under John’s door.

I waited an extra half hour or so. Then I placed my plan into action. I pulled on the fishing line three times. Thump, Thump, Thump. It wasn’t more then 30 seconds later that, John flipped his light on, and threw open his door, he opened my door and flipped the light on. I was pretending like I was asleep. John, kept asking me if I heard that noise? I pretended like I didn’t hear anything, and he was most likely imagining things. I kept insisting that he forget it, and go back to bed.  John even checked the attic, but he didn’t see anything. He eventually went back to bed.

I did this regularly, John would start sleeping on the couch in the living room. To make a long story short, I did it so often that John started sleeping in the living room, on the couch every night. He did that everyday for like three months  before I finally told him it was me and showed him the fishing line and the weight.  He was pissed at first, but he got over it fairly quickly. He did even admit that he was being really foolish believing in bumps in the night.

The moral to this story is simple, remember  the absurd headline at the top of this story, “Pennsylvania Man Broke Into Ex’s Home, Glued Refrigerator Shut”.
This is most likely only half the story, or even less than half. The ex was ultimately charged with criminal mischief. I am not even sure what criminal mischief is. Since when is mischief a crime anyway? Hell, in my much younger days, that could have been me. The only thing I do know for sure, is that the other convicts would most likely laugh at him. If this guy was smart, he would tell his jail house friends, that he did something else more respectable.

As John Housman used to say at the beginning of the old TV series, Tales of The Unexpected. “A wise man believes only in lies, trusts only the absurd, and expects the unexpected”.

As always,

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