Baboon Achievers, Stories, Uncategorized

The Fugitive

81 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown.

I came across an entertaining article recently called “30 Illegal Things Practically Everyone Has Done”   https://bestlifeonline.com/crimes-everyone-has-done/   The following is a list from that article, though I’ve edited it by combining some items, and adding the language in italics.

-using public WiFi

– using a fake name online

– downloading music (w/o paying), movies, TV shows

– drinking underage

– playing poker with friends  ($2000 or more revenue)

– eating something before you bought it

– sharing your password

– using your cell phone while driving

– not updating your driver license when you move

– sharing medication

– jaywalking

– smoking marijuana

– not getting a license for your dog (or cat, in some cities)

– possessing a permanent marker (in Florida and NY)

– writing “disturbing” material (I don’t think this blog counts)

– littering, esp. throwing away a cell phone

– driving over/under the speed limit

– turning right on red, or rolling through a stop sign

– driving through a red light in the middle of the night

– doing a u-turn when it’s illegal

– rolling through a stop sign on your bike, biking on a sidewalk

– not wearing a seat belt

– public intoxication, OR drinking in public (out in the open, away from a bar or restaurant)

– making a meme  (Heck, I still don’t even understand what a meme is.)

Let’s have a little contest – we don’t necessarily need to know WHICH of these illegal things you’ve done, but I think we’ve all done some of them.

How many of these illegal actions have you accomplished?

Any good stories that come to mind?

81 thoughts on “The Fugitive”

  1. Before we have any confessions I have to ask. It’s illegal to own a permanent marker in New York and Florida?

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        1. Correct it is Singapore. And I don’t think it’s illegal to have chewing gum but there are incredibly stringent rules if you spit it out in public.

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        3. Actually I can tell you from having traveled to Singapore, that the public streets are extraordinarily clean there.

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  2. When I started reading today’s piece I thought I would have more on this list. It makes me feel kind of like a goody two-shoes. You all know from things I’ve said in the past that I break all the traffic laws in the middle of the night. I understand the traffic laws are for all of our safety, but at 3 a.m. if there not another vehicle in sight, what does it matter if I’m making a u–turn? I will also admit to trying pot once many many many many years ago. Highly overrated in my book and not worth ever trying again.

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    2. At one of our Townboard meetings, I asked the sheriff deputy if I really had to stop at that red turn signal in the middle of the night.
      She said rather strongly that YES I DO.

      So don’t say you haven’t been warned.

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  3. What impresses me is how rarely I have crossed the line. My inner Jiminy Cricket is a bully nag. Yet I’m guilty of a crime not on the list. Twice I’ve let someone install computer software that I had not, technically speaking, purchased. Both times it was software I actually had bought but later lost when computers crashed. In their zeal to prevent software piracy these companies are abusive to honest customers. Their lawyers would not agree, but I was proud to steal back something I had bought once (actually three times, in one case) and lost.

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    1. I’m thinking that there are more dire consequences for driving around with an uncaged bear in your car then just a fine for it being illegal.

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      1. The interesting thing is that laws like that are not just dreamed up but reflect something that must have actually happened at least once.

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        1. Not to mention, that then some busybody took the time to write a law and badger his/her fellow citizens into enacting it.

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        3. I agree. Whenever I unpack a new Appliance or something that has do and don’t rules on it, it’s always amusing or frightening to stop and think why I need to be told not to use a hot air gun that can peel paint off of wood on my hair.

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  5. makes me glad it wasn’t a longer list
    i’m batting 100 on this list

    really vs… that is goody two shoes

    i smile thinking about the ones not on the list.. don’t think about those awful ones

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  6. No surprise here: I’ve done a lot of these.

    I’ve used public wifi e.g. at the library or a coffeeshop. Why is it illegal to use public wifi?
    Used a fake name online (littlejailbird is not my real name). Again, I have trouble believing this is illegal.
    Jaywalking: I don’t always cross at the corner, but I do always stop, look, and listen before I cross.
    Driving over/under the speed limit…not by much and sometimes it’s not my fault, for instance I seem to often get stuck behind that one driver who drives 15 or 20 where the speed limit is 30 or 35 or drives 30 where the limit is 40.
    Rolling through a stop sign on a bike, riding my bike on the sidewalk: Guilty but I always slow down for the stop sign and check very carefully for traffic (and I stop when safety requires it). I’ve also rode my bike on a sidewalk, but it’s not illegal in Minneapolis.

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        1. Working hard on a yard project this week (that will save me time the rest of the summer: spreading free wood chips over various garden beds to cut down on the weeds, which are running rampant this year). Taking an evening class two nights a week and trying (but failing) to keep up on the homework. That’s it for this week.

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    2. In MN it is legal to ride on sidewalks, except in downtown-type areas, and many states. Many states have the “Oregon Law” which makes it legal for bikers to run stop signs when no traffic is approaching. But bikers violate this law all the time: bikers are subject t to every lawthat drivers are subject to. As a former biker it irritates me to see bikers doing that.

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      1. To defend myself on rolling through stop signs (on a bike), I only do it on not-busy streets with not a car in sight. On busier streets, I’m very good at stopping at red lights and stop signs. In fact, riding in traffic scares me, so I’m very cautious.

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  7. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty….
    The meme I created is spelling the name of the Semi-President thusly:
    Tr$$p.
    Now that can be taken in two ways.
    Firstly as an expletive.
    Secondly as not spelling out the name of God which leads me to another meme I created: The Trumpian Sha-Na-Na.
    There is no God but Tr$$p and Twitter is His Messenger. To be recited five times per day while bowing towards Mar-a-Porno.

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  8. I think there is a lot of nonsense in that list.
    Hope my typing is not too bad. Blind right now. Rushing out door to medical appt

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    2. She has been very sick for two days, inn her colitis way of being sick, and very out of it. At 7 this morning she was very confused. I forced her to drink. I went to the dr and told him about it and he said she would need to have an IV for dehydration. He said he doubted she could drink enough. I came home and she was better and alert. She has not eaten for 2 1/2 days and does not want food. She is drinking now and sitting up in her powered chair. she says she is not dehydrated and is clear, but she is not really but then never is. So we will see.
      I have mentioned about 4 potential cancer issues looming over me, but then I have doubted they were real. Point of the dr visit was to be told that the second cancer issue is not cancer, as was the first. The next two are addressed in two months in an MRI, but no one thinks there is cancer but procedures call for another MRI for this, my fourth one.
      Yesterday was about support groups, of which I am devoid. Drivers for medical procedures is the issue. I have a person from church driving me for shots in my back tomorrow. But yesterday I volunteered to drive for VINE, a local wonderful charity that provides for this. They can drive me probably for the six other days I have coming up in the next three months. After I do my fingerprints, i can start driving for other people in my fix. I do not need to volunteer to be drive, just want to help others in this fix.

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  9. It saddens me that it is easier to break the law now because there are so many regulations. Think of the little girl selling bottled water whose neighbor called 911 because the girl didn’t have a permit. Think of the companies now doing DNA analyses of dog shit to apprehend folks who don’t pick up their pets’ poop.

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    1. Of course the upshot for the little girl is that she is still allowed to sell the water and now has gotten enough people to donate to her that she can take a private jet to Disneyland.

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    2. I wasn’t aware of the DNA analysis option for dog poo. What does that get you? Do you then order everyone in the neighborhood to submit DNA samples of their pet so you can match it up? Or does it tell you the dog breed – so you know it was a pug or a labradoodle, but you don’t know whose?

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      1. I’m not sure, Linda, how it works. They can do a quick analysis to determine the gender of the pooper. But this is a Big Thing. There are many companies providing this service. My last apartment was threatening all renters that they were about to do this.

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        1. I don’t think I would like that job. I got enough time handling poop when my kids were young.

          Although it would be fun, when meeting new people and they ask what I do, to say “I do DNA analysis on dog poop.”

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      1. Our son and dil had to get their dog’s DNA analysed before moving into their current town home. Any errant dog dirt found on the communal grassy areas of the complex is checked for identity and the dog owners fined.

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        4. one of two reasons we left a townhouse association was because of all the rules and all the people who wanted more rules and all the people who spied on others. Msotly old people, but it made me think of nazi Germany and Russia in the 30w to 70s.

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  10. Rise and Count Your Misdeeds, Baboons,

    Well, I am at 15 and counting those not on the list. Every now and then, when I want to sample the criminal life, I drive 3 blocks before I fasten my seatbelt. #45 is frequently cited as a Sociopath. Maybe he drives without his seatbelt, too?

    If the police show up at my door today, I am certain that someone on the force somewhere reads this blog.

    I am already giggling today–I look forward to more true confession. I am calling Michael Cohen so I have a lawyer ready to defend me.

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  12. My Great Uncle 0kkie was arrested for bootlegging in the 1920’s. The judge gave him a fine, to which Uncle Okkie said somewhat insolently , “I have the money right here on my hip” as the judge continued “AND 90 days in jail. Do you have that on your hip Mr. Boomgaarden?”

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  14. I’m batting .567. I’m very scrupulous about not littering, but I’m sure there are times when some bit of paper gets away from me and I give up on trying to retrieve it. And it wouldn’t surprise me if I littered as a kid, perhaps before the age of 7 or so. I can truthfully say I’ve never thrown away a cell phone, though.

    Other laws that are frequently violated, although not by me, are setting off illegal fireworks, driving a car or motorcycle with a faulty or deliberately disabled muffler, and throwing a compact fluorescent light bulb into the trash.

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    1. Of course, when you were seven everyone littered. Ministers, school superintendents, my parents, everyone. Social perceptions of some moral issues evolve over time. When I was a kid the normal way to get rid of an empty beer can was to pitch it into a ditch. Once I could walk into any rural Iowa ditch, shove my hand down in the weeds and expect to touch an empty beer can without much reaching around.

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      1. My dad used to umpire with my mom’s cousin, who was the former sheriff of Pipestone County. The cousin usually drove, and they both drank beer in the vehicle on the way home after games. Cousin always threw his beer cans out the window into the ditch when they were empty. He said he did it out of kindness for “the poor” to pick up and return for money. He was eventually arrested for DWI by one of his own deputies. This was as recent as the late 1990’s, I might add.

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      2. Not MY parents (and thus not us kids). My parents were way ahead of their time when it came to taking care of the earth.

        It was okay to toss an apple core out the car window into the ditch, though. Because that decomposes.

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        1. Before the late 1960s, many folks who routinely pitched things out of car windows were proud to have clean cars. A lot had to change to make littering seem unethical. But this shows that values can change for the better.

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      3. When I was seven, littering was something shameful. There was an ad campaign in the 60’s that told us that Every Litter Bit Hurts. I think my parents took it pretty seriously. My mother was a smoker, but I don’t think I ever saw her toss a cigarette butt on the ground or out a car window.

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  16. I see that there’s a law that prohibits the general public from walking down alleys in Minneapolis. I’ve broken that law many times.

    Also, VS better not drive on Lake Street in Mpls: there is a law that prohibits red cars on that street.

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      2. He was an interesting dude, Bill. He wasn’t any more Indian than you. His dad emigrated from Sicily, and his birth name was Conti. He got into doing stunts and little acting gigs in Hollywood, and it seems he might have seen an opportunity. He began dressing as an Indian, claiming that as his ancestry. He got a bunch of jobs playing Indians. I wonder if that commercial was the only time he was ever in a canoe.

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        1. I wonder if there were any new parents impressed enough to name their progeny after him, as people sometimes do with celebrities. I can see it now:
          Iron Eyes Barkowitz.

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  18. I’m batting about .600. Never tried marijuana (can’t stand the smell), have never owned my own pet, don’t think I’ve written anything disturbing, never had to update my DL (always a Minnesotan), and I never did drink under age (heck, I hardly drink even now). I am sure I have broken many other laws – obscure or otherwise – but have never thrown away a cell phone.

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  19. One I do that’s not on the list: When I’m at my mom’s nursing home, I nab a few of those tiny half-and-halfs, to use in coffee at the senior center, where there is nothing but the powdered stuff that leaves that awful aftertaste. I figure I compensate them by taking my mom to the bathroom every time I visit, relieving them of that bit of time.

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  21. Greetings from York PA!
    Flew out here today for my nephews wedding on Saturday.

    Regarding this list: I’ve never moved so the license thing is out.
    Don’t know how to play poker so that’s out.
    And my dogs don’t need a license.
    But the rest….yeah and then some.

    You Baboons behave while we’re gone.

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  22. Well, I wasn’t able to do many of the list today – just some of the traffic ones, jaywalking, and of course I have those magic markers, but I’m not in Florida or NY. I did litter the alley with an apple core. The really hard one is drinking underage…

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  23. Thankfully, I grew up in a place that had a more sane approach to a lot of things, so while my parents may not have approved of some of my early transgressions, they weren’t illegal.

    Hans claims that I’m the most law abiding person he knows, but the truth is, there are some laws that make more sense to me than others. When I see a “Do Not Trespass” sign, I take that to mean that they don’t wan’t people traipsing all over the place, and I stay out. When I know the speed limit is 70 miles per hour and I’m in Montana on a stretch of highway without a car in sight, I take my chances.

    On the list BiR listed above, I’m batting roughly half. I’ve never smoked pot (smoking just never appealed to me), I’ve played plenty of penny ante poker, but never exceeded the $2000.00 threshold. Littering is abhorrent to me, always has been, so no, I don’t do that. I’ve found myself in the wee hours of the night debating whether or not to obey a red light. By the time I had settled the debate, the light most often had turned green.

    I like Ben’s comment “and then some.” That for me covers most of my transgressions as well. Use your imagination, I had a good time without putting other people in jeopardy.

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