I always love a good Frank Abernathy story.
Ya know – the dude who impersonated pilots? And doctors? And got lotsa arse?
(Does he really say “Pam” in the movie?)
Either way, Frank fortunately had a penchant for the kinda girls who don’t care what the difference between a “Pam” or “Pan” American flight is – and was equally smooth enough to slide by colleagues unnoticed. I suppose that idea of slipping into another identity and being able to fool everyone around you was made appealing to me when Christina Applegate’s “Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead” character did it. So, seeing little news tales hither and thither about people being exposed after doing major life fakeouts that get ‘em in trouble, always brings a slight smile to my face.
If it’s well done and if there’s a meaningful motive behind it.
When there’s not, it just ends up making me feel sad inside for humanity (unless they fail and die in the process, of course #genepoolcleanup). But we all make stupid decisions sometimes, right? So in the spirit of setting the “here’s what not to do” examples, let’s look at some faker folks who shot a bit lower than manning iron birds through the clouds or cutting stuff outta people with zero credentials.
Like the runaway groom, for instance.
Dude fakes his own death pre-wedding in a “Don’t Tell Mom” scheme of his own – where he pretended he’d perished to get out of marriage. But he should’ve told mom, because when his ex-fiance called the family to offer condolences and see when the funeral was, she had a total descending horn womp-womp moment hearing from his parents he was alive and well. Embarrassing – although I suppose it’d be better to give up the fib than spending the rest of your life hiding out and dodging ex-y when you see her.
Plus the cold feet/cold shoulder debacle wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as it was for another dude – also in the UK – who told his girlfriend he’d been kidnapped. The aim? To carry on partying with his pals. What’s going on, Englishmen? To be fair, I hear the weather over there tends to be dismal. That’s gotta affect your sanity and relationships little bit, right? (#reaching). Plus, in the dude’s defense, the lie itself was poorly done because he was drunk – the worst time to fabricate effectively. But since alcohol was the reason for the lie (he wanted to keep going), he had limited wits with which to work. And when he told the fib to his girlfriend about “being kidnapped” and that the kidnappers “wanted a 50 pound ransom” for him to come home, she called the cops. I feel like this one may have been retaliation from a girlfriend who knew it was a lie and wanted to get back at him by involving the fuzz.
And speaking of money, some Taco Bell counterfeiters back here in ‘murca proved that however bad the English are at something, we’ll find a way to beat them by making it rain god-awful-ery.
The fast food supervisors from Manhattan did try to cover their lie unlike these other two dudes. But after putting horribly made fake cash in the register, they failed miserably at convincing their employee to keep using it. I always say “have a plan B” ready – but theirs must have been improvised because it involved impersonating under cover cops… who champion fake money schemes and threaten 17-year-old register workers with jail if they don’t cooperate in the crooked business of fast food. Amateurs. Sure the money motive isn’t bad, but you already own a business. Just work harder. Or get a passive income side gig.
Whether food’s fast or slow, however, is irrelevant when the food itself is the motive. Which is why we’ll end today’s tale with someone who gets the thumbs up:
A panda.
This bish faked having a bun in the oven… to get more buns from an actual oven: “They also receive more buns, fruits and bamboo, so some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life,” a panda expert listed along with all the other round-the-clock, Four Seasons style air conditioned special care mamas-to-be get to enjoy.
Creative Spitball Sidebar: The fact that she was scheduled to “star” in a live birth makes this feel like Pixar fodder for a story about a single bear panda who’s envious of all the PTA moms and desperate zoo-wives around her popping out kids. But she isn’t ready to have kids yet, so she fakes it and everyone starts gushing and pampering her and preparing her for the big daunting live birth she can’t fake. And then, toward the end, some guru lemur character that’s been friends with her all along, suggests she get f’real knocked up and that she’s being selfish staying mom-less because the species is dying out. And in a spin of events, she realizes after a montage of remembered interactions with the nice, wise single zoo-keeper who protects her from the cruel sadistic one (parallel side story), that it’s not selfish because she’s self-actualized and understands that kids just aren’t for her during this life. Anyone wanna collab? Or just… ya know… steal my idea and give me none of the money? That’s cool. I just want someone to make it and find places for Scarlett Jo-hottie and Helen Mirren’s voices.
So the panda wins – selfish or not – and that’s not just because of my animal loving proclivities. Or just because I’m selfish too and can empathize. I say it because it further illustrates the point I made in an earlier post about how we keep trying to save the panda species when they obviously don’t want to be here anymore. Faking preggo to eat more food when you’re not even gonna use it to reproduce? Eff yeah, that’s a worthy motive to fake for! She wanted that single unattached life and the income noms of pregnancy. It’s the welfare bear version of Louis Vuitton on zoo gov’ment money. Hell yeah! Have your cake and food stamps too, girl.
Way to bamboo stick it to the man.
