Paper Money

“I don’t think this is a good idea, GeekMan.”
“Don’t worry about it, Princess. We’re standing in the middle of SOHO on a sunny afternoon and we’re surrounded by people doing their weekend shopping. What do you think this guy going to do to us that’s so horrible? Fart loudly?”

With that I turned away from my doubting cousin and back towards the upstanding young man who had asked us a question. It was a beautiful, sunny summer’s day in 1993 and I was flush with cash from my first paycheck at my new job. My cousin Princess and I had decided to celebrate by going shopping for some much needed new clothing and accessories. She was looking for a new watch and I was looking for a new coat.

I know it was summer, but everyone knows you get the best deals off-season.

Anywaste, Princess and I had been shopping for about two hours in the village without any luck when we decided to head downtown and see what the shops there might have for us. It was while we were walking around in SOHO, somewhere around Spring Street and Broadway, that we had the seemingly good fortune of bumping into a young entrepreneur wearing a trench coat and carrying a large shopping bag.

“Hey man, you wanna buy a camcorder? It’s brand new.”

Wow! This was my lucky day! How fortunate that I ran into this upstanding model citizen who just happened to be selling a brand new camcorder! And on the street, too. It wasn’t exactly what I had been shopping for, but I had all summer to shop for a new coat and who could possibly resist the temptation of their very own camcorder. Knowing that I would be the envy of all my friends, I decided to investigate this hot deal before I lost my chance of a lifetime.

“What kind of camcorder?”
“It’s a Sony. It sells in the stores for $600 but I’m letting it go for only $300.”

Outstanding! I could get a new camcorder for less than half what I would have to pay in the stores! This was awesome, just awesome! But I knew I had to play it cool or this guy would milk me for all my cash. Hey, I knew how these deals went down on the streets; I wasn’t some mama’s boy without a clue, you know.

I watched Hill Street Blues.

“Is it broken or something?”
“No man, it’s still in the box see?”

He quickly flashed the top of the box in the shopping bag.

“OK, how do I know the box isn’t empty?”
“Feel it. See? Does that feel empty?”

It certainly didn’t feel empty. It felt heavy, like it had a nice, hefty camcorder in it. My camcorder. Oh man, with a camcorder I’d finally get invited to all those parties I kept hearing about but never got invited to. You know; the ones where they served fancy cheeses and supermodels showed up out of nowhere and everyone looked beautiful and danced in slow motion? Everyone would want to be my friend so I could come to their gatherings and film them and their friends having a good time. I could make a movie and become the next Lucas. I could be rich and famous! I could be a star!

Hey! I could prowl around outside of windows at night and film people having sex!

“Well, it sure does sound like a good deal. What do you think Princess?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I don’t trust him. I mean, where’d he get the camcorder, anyway?”

Well, damn. She had a point.

“Hey, I got it off the back of a truck.”

Score one for the Upstanding Model Citizen!

“We’re supposed to believe that you got a camcorder off the back of a truck and now you’re trying to sell it on the street instead of keeping it for yourself?!”

Ooo. I think she got him there…

“Lady, I work as one of the delivery guys for The Wiz, you know, the electronics superstore? Well, when I was making a delivery last week they left a pallet of these babies just sitting outside and when I was leaving a few boxes just happened to crawl back into the truck, y’know? So I got lots of these things and I’m just trying to get rid of this last one, OK?”

Boo-Yah!!!

“Oh. I guess that does explain a lot…”

Yes! I knew it! I knew he was truly an entrepreneur and not a scam artist! I’m going to get me a camcorder! I’m going to be so fricking popular even Linda B., the object of many of my late night fantasies, would want to be seen in public with me. Maybe in private, too! Oh momma, for the first time in my life I’m gonna roll with the IN crowd!

“So man, you want it or not?”

But first, I had to play it cool and haggle the price down or he’d think I was some sort of chump. Five minutes later I was handing over $200 and he was handing over my new camcorder. As soon as we had made the exchange though, he took off like a shot and my subconscious finally managed to pull the emergency cord in my skull and set off the “You Idiot” alarm system.

“Hey, I wonder where he’s going in such a hurry.”
“GeekMan, you don’t think…”
“No, no. Of course not. Uh, maybe he just remembered that he left the iron on, or something.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it.”

We both looked down at the shopping bag.

“Not that I don’t trust him…”
“Oh no, never that.”
“No, of course not. I mean, he seemed so nice, after all.”
“Yes. Upstanding.”
“Honest.”
“Truthful.”
“Trustworthy, even.”

We both looked at the bag again.

“Still…”
“I agree.”

We headed down a side street and quickly pulled the “Sony” box out of the bag. Our first real clue was the box itself, which seemed to have once been a much larger cardboard box which had been cut and folded down to camcorder box size. The second clue was that the word ‘Sony’, the feature list and the picture of the camcorder all seemed to have been cut out of a magazine ad and scotch-taped to the box.

The final clue was what was inside the box.

“Well, GeekMan…”
“Don’t say it.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Don’t say it.”
“But this is just too good an opportunity to pass up!”
“Don’t. Say. It.”
“OK, but you know one of us has got to say it. It just wouldn’t be right if we didn’t.”

I looked at what my two hundred dollars had just bought me and knew she was right. I also knew that even though I had every right to be angry and pissed off that I had been taken in by a scam artist, I wasn’t.

I mean, the guy had been good.

It also wasn’t the ‘I told you so’ speech that Princess wanted so desperately to say and that I was trying to forestall. It was something else. It was something that I knew, and she knew, one of us was going to have to say aloud in order for this day to be as memorable as we knew it could be. Because, when we opened the ‘Sony camcorder’ box I had just bought from a stranger on a street corner in New York City, what I found was not a camcorder at all, but a big bundle of newspapers. And the story on the top page of the pile?

Police Warn Of New Camcorder Scam.

He was ballsy, the scam artist was. And he seemed to have a sense of humor to boot. Princess and I already knew we had been had, but we weren’t upset. Not really. You see, we were both trying desperately to hold back our laughter. She was right, though. In order for this to end one of us had to say it. Sigh.

“You know, Princess…”
“Yes, GeekMan?”
“Maybe…”
“Muh… muh… maybe, what?”

Her eyes were tearing up as she tried to hold back her laughter. I resigned myself to my fate, shrugged and said in my best deadpan;

“Maybe we should read this.”

We laughed for hours.

*** UPDATE ***
It seems that this scam is still happening!