Opinion: Dumb criminals, food tips entertain Rusty Sabre

On one trolling expedition, I netted two dandy ones.

I love stories about dumb criminals and unlucky criminals. This story is a classic on both counts. It comes from an Associated Press story about a bank holdup in Orlando, Fla. The crook, Ray Brooks, demanded the teller give him cash. The teller put money in a bag and handed it over to him. The culprit took the bag and stuffed it into the waistband of his pants and ran out of the bank.

Here, we have the really dumb crook who was so dumb he thought he could go into the bank, demand money, hotfoot it out and get away with the money. He was going to be caught.

Besides, he was about to become unlucky.

The alert teller had slipped an explosive pack of dye into the bundle of cash timed to explode a few minutes later.

You do remember where he stuck the money; that’s critical to the story. Even if you didn’t read the original news account, you may have fast-forwarded to the ending.

The unlucky component merges with the dumb one. Passersby on a crowded street noticed our dumb/unlucky crook rushing by with his pants exploding in bright orange flames.

The teller assumed he would carry the moneybag in his hand – not his pants. The exploding pants was an unexpected perk.

In my mind’s eye, a multitude of images radiate from the scene. I picture the shock on the faces of the onlookers and the look of stark terror in the eyes of the man as his pants explode around him.

When reading this story, my first thought was of the childhood taunt: “Liar, liar. Pants on fire.” Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would ever use this phrase in a column. Sorry, couldn’t resist the urge.

The image of the bright orange dye all over the middle of this dumb/unlucky crook’s body is too vivid to fade away. I will leave other cynical comments and/or exploding crotch jokes to my readers.

From The Wall Street Journal comes a story about the Communist paradise of Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

As a bit of background, the average monthly wage in Cuba is $17; the monthly meat ration is about the amount contained in two hamburger patties. Almost everything, including soap and fresh water, is apparently rationed.

The Soviet Union propped up Castro’s economy until the USSR imploded in the 1980s. Since then, Cuba has been on its own. The subsequent rationing resulted.

As a service to hard-pressed Cubans, Margarita Galvez, a writer for the Catholic Bishops office in Western Cuba, presented cooking with rationed food products and beauty tips using them. Appearing on state-controlled television, she offered a recipe for a salad dressing which calls for saving the ration of water used for soaking a ration of rice; add two spoonfuls of dark sugar and marinate for 45 days. (I’m not making this up) It will be vinegary and can be used to top a salad. Save the rest to use as a hair conditioner after shampooing, assuming the lady has a ration of soap. Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart.

Another Cuban TV tip requires far less than 45 days to complete, but it’s equally compelling.

For soft hands, save a few bread crumbs and some milk left over from dinner; heat and soak your hands. Since milk and bread is rationed, I would think they would be more useful to drink and eat than soak in them.

You may be thinking that the bread and milk hand-soaking hint is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. Au contraire.

This dubious cooking hint has no accompanying grooming component. In order to stretch rations of meat, Galvez recommends grinding up grapefruit rinds into meat patties. Apparently, this concoction proved to be hard to digest.

It’s no mystery why so many Cubans defect to America, where freedom, as well as hair conditioner, hand lotion and Hamburger Helper, is within the reach of everyone.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.[[In-content Ad]]