660: Hoaxing Yourself
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Parents, here is all the evidence that you need, that T V is bad for kids, especially public T V when tom was fourteen, he love watching those british T V shows. They are always running on P, B, S, masterpiece theatre.

that a huo. And then there was this show that I would that I would stay up really late and watch um and tape and watch over over again the tape called demand y and make peace um which was about a an american detective who went to london because he had been like set up at home and he was teamed up with a woman who was this histed crati named lady harriet make peace and I was really on her side I think .

you know she's got on you looked down on the american. But child liked about lady Harry and make peace. And all the other bits on TV was their remove ness had they seemed above at all. Have they go down on americans which chanted also convince there must be something wrong with the nation that produce jack and bullies who who are asking in school and sometimes joking around with his friends, he would talk with the british accent.

And then IT was just something that spiraled out of control. I know that eventually I was just using an english accent, literally, from waking to sleeping, morning, new and night.

Shang spoke with the bridge jaccard from the time he was fourteen until he was sixteen. At some point, his mom thought, you know, maybe I need to do something about this and took him to see as I kai rest.

he was just really, he must, I don't know, you know, the different schools of psychology, but he was really very confronting. And you'd like, well, you gotta stop doing this, he said, because because you're not british, you know. And my mom, my mom just sort of sad over next. And SHE SHE sort of one yeah, to agree with him and to, you know, sort of help him in showing me this charms.

Furious, he had an imposed lecture, the guy on how, in fact, he was british. And the only problem with that was that a, he know very well that he was not. And b, his mom was sitting right there. He was sure to contradict, I didn't know what to do. Situation seemed impossible because that's .

what I was thinking. Like there has to be a way that I can be british still.

There must be a way that this is true somehow.

Yeah exactly.

But they, in a radio program, stories of people who tell a lie, and they get to the point where they believe the lie more than anybody else does. IT feels like IT must be true, happens all the time, and going to say, we are not even going to get into what happens with political figures in the show kiddin themselves about the facts of things today.

We are stories of civilians, people like you, and make basically pulling hopes on ourselves from W, B, C, chicago to this american life. I'm I A glass I D one of my program today. The son never sets on the museum ood restaurant in which two Young men, both from small towns, try on new identities, false identities, and what they have to do to keep the eyes going to hinting the command. Nancy update reports on the federal sting Operation and how had caught conman by sitting up a can of its zone like three edip hacks, a little kid tries to get rid of his own father. But a very, very unlikely plan, say.

with us.

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There is a lot of curve balls, and being grateful isn't always easy. Therapy can help remind you of all that you're worthy of and all that you do have. Let the gratitude flow with Better help try and Better helps out com slash T A L today to get ten percent off your first month.

It's this american life at line. The sun never sets on the museums restaurant. So this is the story of two Young people who, for a period in their lives and research to figure out who they were, pretended to be, people who they were not.

Who going to hear from shan coal and from joe level. We're onna start with today show is a ren. This was quoted years ago these days, shown as a producer here at our show. A sean grew up in a small town in the time. That was approximately three thousand, three hundred fifty miles from london.

IT was second nature. IT was first nature. IT was you.

To this day, I have trouble saying, oh, I fake an accent for two years. I mean, I had an accent for two years. I like.

so could I just ask you to take a deep breath and and describe bed for me? What you had a for lunch today, perhaps for breakfast this morning in is close to the .

accent that that you can yeah and. Well, I, I, I had a salad. I had IT at the boston house of pancakes, pizza rather.

but was the .

beverage IT was a snap, a just lemon flavor. I don't really like the page.

Joe level story began when he left the working class town where he grew up in upstate in new york, his parents the liquor store in a small town. He was the first member of his family to go to college, and he was an especially big deal because he got ten to an ive league school, for now.

was one of those those first days of of college. You know, when you spend a lot of time, everybody kind of moves and horns. And he spend a lot of time in each other storm rooms. And there is, there were about O, I don't know, ten or eleven of us in this one guy's room, and we were just like sitting around eating pizza and talking, and people were talking about what they're where they were from and parents died and stuff like that.

And there was one guy whose dad was a doctor for um for the nex there was another guy whose whose father was an elected representative from from new york's state and and then this other guy whose father was on the world core literally was was a member of the world core mine and so so that suddenly seemed like this incredibly sort of impressive group to me and they seemed like just the world in ways that you there was just beyond my wildest imagination and and you worldly beyond what I am now Frankly. And I remember sort of sitting at the time thinking, oh my god, i'm so out of my league here and then completely unplanned, I suddenly said as as a slice of pizza passed to me this kind of pizza sausage on top of that. I said, no, I can take that. My parents are vegetarians and .

and everything .

in the room sort of turned and looked at me because I was in I said, vegetable an but I said, no, my parents are vegetarians and there's a sort of puzzled luck on everybody in the play in in the room and I said, well, and I am to I i've never in meat and i'm not in higher well, I mean, I I have some ideas now about why I said that, but at the time I had no idea what I was saying. I was like, you know, suddenly I had become possessed, and I had to think of something to say about myself that seemed interesting. And in vegetarianism was the was the thing that I chose.

Now um did you tell people that you were actually from england?

No, no, never that I was from brain. But but in a way that I was british. You know there was a real distinction there for me like I, you know, i'd taken IT on like I was culturally british now well.

I think what I was is and I think I did sort of calculus that took .

like .

a nanosecond in my head and I thought you I can't actually lie about what my parents do, but I think the connections that I was making were, um were this that somehow like because I was from this town in the sticks, if my folks were vegetarians, then the whole history that that suggested was that they were you this kind of leftist, academic critical. So IT sort of dropped out society and gone back to the land. And I was living in this bumpkin town in upstate in new york. And and you know, might you know, my folks were living some sort of life that was driven by their their political, physical hy, rather than, you know, I was just a guy who grew up in in upstate new york.

You know, I did the old kid thing of like wishing that my real british parents would come and tell me I was adopted and take me back to london.

So i'm sit there in the room and all these guys are looking at me and they're like, do do you know, you know, what do you eat? And sudden I realized, I realized in that moment how little I knew about vegetarian m and I tried to be a real sort of vague about, you know, we solids and and lentils. I remembers start saying lentils a lot.

you know. And there was a gap, certainly in my education, because, like, I would be using, you know, words that americans just don't use. You know, I would, instead of saying drug story, I would say, chemist, or, you know, I would try my best to remember to say, you know, bond instead of hood, or boot instead of trunk. But I often couldn't.

And the meal plan, I I ended up eating a lot of big piles of iceberg, let us and chick peace .

and and during that time, uh, would you find yourself sneaking to go to get meet somewhere?

Yeah, definitely. At first I would go really far from campus in order, in order to have like, like A B, L, T. There was this. There's a dinner downtown. And ethical and IT IT was IT felt incredibly illicit. I'd be sitting there and some reading material or you um and and I would order of the body and I would sort of watch IT kind of coming from across the room, you know with its tooth pick in the top of IT and a sight of french rise with this meat graving on top and and IT would just, you know, when I landed on the table, I would just seem like this incredibly sort of wonderful moment you when you're doing something just totally unlike what anybody .

would .

expect to you I was nobody. You know I mean, I was I was living in a root like extremely small kind of round town in the middle of nowhere IT was I guess in a way like this was my way of traveling and you know in a way and of being somebody and sort of of achieving an identity um which I I guess I didn't feel like a hat like I didn't feel like I am just sort of realizing this now. But I guess say I didn't feel as though I had anything that made me up.

I mean, what I realized fairly quickly as that is that if this is going to be believable, I actually have to um well, I have to believe in IT but I also began to not only believe but really sort of them take on is my persona, all all of the stuff that I imagine that was associated with the .

vegetarianism. So like why? Well.

you know certain certain political convictions and ways of dress.

I wore rip jeans and I wore combat boots, but I also wore like a kind of stage um uh jacket that you would see you know in a in in a community theatre production of hamlet.

But yeah you know I got sample. I have very specifically remember red by going down to the threat store in downtown etha and buying a pair of fatigue shorts which just seemed like, know, I might as well have been shake air at that point where I mean, as well as I was concerned I was yeah I was a dangerous left this um did you at .

any point during this find yourself in the following argument where you would say i've never had a hamburger and somebody would insist, oh, you must have had needed some point and then you had to argue your side .

yeah definitely IT IT IT wasn't pretty um and of course, you know I had grown up. I'm just just to put this in context for a second, if you don't mind, I mean, not only hit, I had hundreds of hamburgers and gone to the mcDonald drive through hundreds of times.

But the counterpoint situation that I always think about when I remember this time is that when I was a senior in high school, we my family, for a sort of time saving reasons, uh decided that um a great thing to do would be to go to R B S. rosy. I know if I think country why so my dad and I would go to orbes on, say like know thursday afternoon or something or or after I got to school and we would go in there, we would buy um forty eight arbs roby e salary.

We, and they would put him in this cardboard, this cardboard box, and we would bring home, we would bring home, this time, this giant box full of those tin foil covered arvie rossie sandwiches. And we would stuff them in our refresher freezer. We would freeze the arbs recipe sandwich es, and then we would happen there s in all the buns at all.

yes. And so we would happen there is already made snacks whenever we won't want one. Then that's the kind of immediately that my family wasn't gay.

The other thing .

was that I had these runnings with with doubting my british identity like really yeah as though IT we're slipping away and I would I would really go not to that point. And there was time there was one time what happened at home. I was like, at home and and I was like, oh my god, I have to do something.

I have to confirm my devotion, you know. So I think, no, I opened up the window. I locked myself to do IT as like a man. If I don't do this, like you won't come back and I open up the window and then I and I like I screamed is in the middle night or no ten at night I screamed, I love england outside the and of course in a british accent outside the window and and then .

you felt Better.

You felt like you had like, I had done something at least for england. Yeah, I had I had fortified my, my, my britishness.

I would find myself in these in these conversations where people are saying, now you've never had a mcDonald hamburger or what kind of eighteen year old american has never had a hamburger for mcDonald? Quite a little ma question I would have absolutely, absolutely. And I would say, yeah, you know, i've just never had when they scared me and I would sort of like talk about the ways I would make up these stories about helm.

I'd come close a couple of times how my friend, a friend of mine high school, had bought me a big mac, and there I was sitting on the front seat of his car. I almost there and couldn't bring myself to do IT and see, yeah, there was all the sort of drama that I am. They also that I lied about.

My mom, dad came down to, came down to visit for parents weekend, and they were really proud that I was going there and and really excited to come down. And they came down .

to visit and really proud because you were the first generation to go to college into this I V schools. A big, big deal.

And so they drove down from chemist, which is about hour and betwen hour, an hour and half, they came down. And you know, that week leading up to parents weekend, everybody's talking about their parents coming and every boy's making reservations at restaurants in a way to eat on saturday night, and everybody is sort of planning on taking their parents to the football game on saturday during the day. And IT sudenly occurred in this real sort of panic, said in that you, that my parents would come down and we would go to a football game and my dad would buy a hot dog, and, you know, in somebody I can cross the field would see mr, a level eating hot dog, and, you know, and then of course, the cap would be out of the bag.

And so I thought, you know, i've got to make i've got to make a reservation at a restaurant at some place, either a where nobody else's parents will be, or at or at a vegetarian restaurant. And so what I did was in IT was make a reservation at the museum ood restaurant, which is an ethical you know there's the museums cook books that are out and vegetating cook books exactly and it's a nice little vegetable, an restaurant etha in a slightly famous place um but then we got there and no just I I remember sitting down at the table in the move wood and and you know the balls are these kind of carved wooden balls and I mean, everything about IT feels like, well, like a vegetarian restaurant and .

I just a vegetarian but kind of a cartoon of .

and you know and I was looking at my parents across the table and they were sort of dressed up and they were excited to be coming down and and I could tell like my dad was sitting there and sort of brewing the menu and thinking, well, you know, well, you know, maybe this mental salad or whatever, and I could tell you was in anything.

Now, chee, I just drove in our half all I want stake in a big potato and a beer, you know and there I was bringing them here and and but they were so game about that they were so sort of willing to go along with IT, because for some reason they thought I really wanted to bring them there. And I just like, cheesy. Now, these people, my parents have really like giving up a lot for me to to come there.

I mean, financially, they were really stretching themselves, and we were taking and all sorts of loans, know those things that that people do in order to go to college. They never complained once about doing IT, and they know they just wanted to come down and see me there and feel proud that I was there and I was sort of hiding the mountain, this vegetable, an restaurant. I felt so bad about .

IT afterwards.

And they never once complained. They went home. And I imagine the other, I sort of imagine them stopping at our hearts just outside of the good, getting up for here.

So they say, goodby. E, but, you know, after that I just thought, cheese. And i've got I gotto find some way to to come clean about this.

I mean, is IT OK if your child decides to express himself in an alternate personality for a period of two years.

I think there's it's funny. I never thought I would say this, but I think there's nothing wrong with that. I never thought I would say IT because I think I wish that I hadn't done IT now, but maybe I learned something from doing IT. I mean, I think that, that is in power for the course, like that's part of now. I think that's part of growing up.

And I think that was IT was probably necessary for me at at that time in my .

life because he gave .

you more confidence yeah and there was there was some bridge that that this know that this allowed me across.

Joe level and shanghai joe level is the executive eda of a podcast company called pineapple street media and an actual vegetarian. These days.

Shawn code works in public radio.

and he's one of the producers of our program.

That piece ce of me on your plate but was. Think about you makes me feel.

At two counting the command, the american legal system, for the most part, does not uphold the principle of I for an eye. If you steal somebody's car, the judge does not steal your car in return. If they catch your selling, we, they do not sell weed to you as your punishment.

But if you're in the business of running scams, authorities catch you by running a scam on you. This is the story of a kind man who made millions by following people over the phone until he was the one who got ford. As he update report.

the guy's name is David diamond, that his actual name, he was one of the most successful salesmen in one of the longest running telemarketing .

scams in less Angeles history. David diamond was a salesman at a boiler room.

This is deal sa covet. He's been a federal trade commission investigator for twenty nine years. He's the one who gusted diamond.

He was living in a very expensive home up in the hills and wooden hills. He drove a custom um porch, korea that he had shipped over here by airplane from germany, from the factory. They lived very high on the hog.

David diamond was just one of a whole bunch of guys making money hand over fist in an Operation in southern california that was basically running the same scam over and over under different names for seven years. IT was an investment scheme. Give us your money, and we will put IT into this great nine hundred number business, or this online shopping network, or this hot new internet service provider.

Needless to say, no one ever made a dime except the people running the game who cleared forty million dollars since diamond was one of the Opera's top salesmen, he made two million dollars in commissions in just four years on the job. He got thirty percent of whatever he talked a person into investing. That means he personally can't people.

Out of more than six million dollars, the F, T, C caught diamond in the others in the Operation. Essentially by conning the con men, they had volunteers pose as dupes and record their phone calls. Because the F T C brought a case against the Operation, diamond worked in. Some of those recordings are now part of the public record. I got deals, the coverage to listen to the tapes with me and talk about David diamond and the FBI volunteer who called .

him the woman on the tape. I can tell you her real name, but SHE uses the aliens of march. A SHE assumed the identity of a person who is named marge. Uh, marge was a real person who we in law enforcement and who people in the tell marketing business referred to as a moch. A much is someone who will essentially buy anything from anybody who calls her on the telephone in the fact he did.

Over a number of years, SHE spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, the real market, the real march spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on bogus prize promotions, investments, um gold coins, you name IT. So the F, B, I went to march and said, we really think that we need to take your telephone number away from you because it's being used to ruin your life. So once march agreed to that, her telephone number was installed and the home of an F, B, I volunteer. And that volunteer, every time that phone line ring the march line, that volunteer would pick up that telephone and .

answer IT and pose as march. Much time here. Yeah, I put up a video and a package. Yes, I have of IT. Okay, the video is with regards to mark erickson.

Mark character is the person who is is heading up the program, yes, and is very successful and taking up start companies and making them successful. You've ly heard of hard copy, original product, hard copy. I heard of that.

Yeah your smiling is you listen to this. What what do you smiling about?

Well, i'm smiling because I been a while since i've heard heard marge and SHE sounds so old and so fragile or and such an easy mark uh, when in fact you know she's this sharp FBI informant SHE doesn't look as old as as he sounds trust me um so that's one one aspect of the other aspect is this whole market character yeah .

is he a real person?

Mark son is a real person. He he was named in our love and .

was he an original producer of hard copy?

No, he was a segment producer and on the air reporter for hard copy for a brief period of time.

And I mean, is this sort of typical of the cause in the tapes that you've heard that that they'll try to um associate um what they're selling with a legitimate business or or organization or television show something that people have heard of .

exactly are they want to make this yeah something people can relate to.

Here's the thing, you have to invest everything you've got or do nothing at all. And i'll say that again, you should invest everything you have. You should transfer all of your investing in this program or do nothing IT doesn't make sense to do just a little bit.

You you should think about doing a million dollars in this program. 咋整 呢？ That's all my you need to liquid every nick you've gotten.

You want to be in the situation. You either want to in the situation whole hardly and upgrade your investments or or you don't. My suggestion to do the whole thing.

Well, I would never liquid date everything I have. My question is why not? Because there's always gamble and anything like this. Well, any investment like this is, well, anything invested is always gamble.

Now I want to ask you, um you told me once um that you thought he sounded nervous on this tape and in this part where he's saying, you know an investment like this and he's sort of questioning her what what he mean like this I wonder is do you have any sense that he's suspicious ous that he might know what he's up to? I mean, do they know that volunteers are out there trying to trap them posing as dupes?

No, since we talked about this tape last actually. So to have a revelation that came to me as to why I listened to over forty individual types of David diamond um conversations with marge and conversations with others over the course of about a year and one of the things when you've listen to all of them, you find that David in sort of the early the earlier part of that year um was much more kind of sweet and cautious and trying to bond with these women and patient.

And sometimes we're spent an hour on the phone with them. The tape would be an hour long. But this tape was made towards the very end of that year period, probably within a week or two of our RAID having gone in on the RAID and searched David diamond desk that day, I came to realize the David diamond was starting to question whether he wanted to do this anymore.

He was he was starting to really have some concerns about the concerns about what they were doing. And I believe that in these last couple of weeks, that and it's kind of shown in this tape, he was becoming a little bit desperate. He wanted to make a couple of more big hits and he just couldn't figure out why this woman wasn't gonna write him a check. So he started getting frustrated, and IT IT comes out in his voice .

what evidence did you see that he was starting to have you moral comes about what he was doing.

David had become a born again. There were religious track, all of his office and posters on his wall.

Secondly.

I don't know exactly what the time for you most. I we do know that he had given a lot of the money that he had made to his church, and we believe that a lot of that was sort of a self imposed penance that he could justify what he was doing, because he was, he was giving was tipping this. This money that was taking from these poor victims into his church have .

thirty thousand dollars, what you made on every five thousand dollars. And he put fifty thousand doors in this program at three hundred thousand dollars return. That's what i'm telling you. You need to do you a million dollars in this program.

I don't know. I would never put that my dream in any program. Do you have an obligation to yourself as investors to make the most possible? But well, you know, at my age, just really not that.

Where do I wanted say, I haven't up to live on for the rest of my life, right? And IT feel in your best interest that makes the most amount of money possible if you trying to do IT is safely possible. It's my obligation not to lose what I do when I heard this .

part of the tape, even though I knew that um that this woman, this particular woman was not in in con that he was in fact calling him and trapping him um I I started to get so angry because I was thinking, you know, he is really trying to take all of this old woman's money, all of IT she's saying I have enough to live on he's saying you have an obligation to make more IT do ever hear things like that and just just get angry even though, you know that cheese sort of in on the on the kind .

of a joke every time I hear these pitches, i'm outraged because I am the person that spoke to people who really did send David diamond tens of thousands of dollars that consisted of their life savings ings and now don't have any money to even buy groceries. I've interviewed them um I seen them sob. Yeah, that makes me very angry.

And what's the recall? Do they have?

Swim slim and then we have public companies .

that want to take you public. So you've got a public companies past judgment and we're me talking anymore. If mark erickson wants to do business with is only me talking anymore, give you Billy to make an absolute tune and IT doesn't make sense not to have everything makely you've got in a particular program.

That's why I said is the merge investor situation and you should do at least fifty to one hundred and one hundred and fifty. Why I have the opportunity? Well, how much are you investing in this? My investment comes in the time airport with my client.

Yes, right? In the fact that when they make money, they reinvest with me, right? Have the whole point. 嗯。

you are smiling again. What when he said, you know, how much are you investing? I mean, he just screwing around with him.

Course she's playing with them. Yeah I mean, she's she's trained to ask him those kinds of questions so that he responds with a misrepresented but that doesn't sound like .

it's part of the script. That just sounds like her I mean, her being mean and sort of a of a delicious well.

no, I think what we were trying to do, her her handler was trying to do was get her to make, to get him to say, oh yeah, i've got him in IT and i've got my my mother and my grandmother in IT and and i'm putting away money for my child's education with IT because then we could show later .

that he hadn't did you ever did you ever talk to march about what it's like to to do this? Do they ever I mean, do they ever sort of have fun just thinking, you know, i'm just turning the tables on this guy. He has no idea.

I I can I wish I could answer the question. I've never spoken to them. I would i'd love to get the answer to that. My side, I ask that question myself. Um I think they get a lot of personal satisfaction.

though. How often do you get a chance to catch a bad guy? Is just a regular civilian?

yes. You know, I do IT too. I take people using an aliens in the cases that I work .

and .

is IT fun. I love you. I love to get these people to tell me stuff. You know, it's it's like acting. There's there's a rush.

The rush of a con, the pleasure of IT, is knowing that you have more power than the person you're coming. You know more, you know that it's a can. And let's face IT, given the choice between being the mark and being the conman, nobody y's gonna choose to be the mark.

But the problem is, the more confidence you have in your own con, the more easily you become a mark yourself. Comment, get taken by other comment all the time. There just seems to be something about the particular arrogance of always being on the knowing side of the cn that makes for a really, really good mark.

Nani updates is one of the production of our program in the years since the first broadcast. This epsom today show is a rn dail sack, of which the ftc investigator who bust ted, David diamond, has died.

Coming up, I tried to tried to fix his own family by harnessing the most powerful force that exists anywhere. That's in a minute, chicago, above a radio, when our program continues.

Support for this american life comes from coppell university. Learning is enough to get in the way of life. With copilot game changing flex path learning format, you can set your own deadlines and learn on your own schedule.

That means you don't have to put your life on hold to earn your degree, instead, enjoy learning your way and pursue your educational and career goals without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with copeland university. Learn more at copilot edu. Support for this american life comes from square space connect major social and multimedia accounts to your website in a few clicks as icons, direct links or embedded fees build visitor trust while updating content only where you need IT. Sellers can also sink their product catalogue directly with instagram, facebook, youtube and google to reach more customers and reduce the steps for a purchase visit square space out com, slash american for ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain.

This american life, america, I see in a program, of course, you lose a theme, bringing a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme today, show foxing yourself, stories of people who are following themselves. Sometimes that is a side effect of trying to full others so they just don't know Better. I pin hops and believes on something that is simply not true at all.

We've arrived to, like three of our show x adpi hacks. So also tells the story which happened him when he was a boy. And one of those ultra thou x jewish religious schools called you shivers.

I wanted to listen to that. Although this street is about a little boy in the story, the dad is not so nice to his kids, which might not be a thing that little kids will enjoy hearing at all. So take that under advisement here show on.

Rabbi broyle walked into our third grade classroom, hung up his long black coat, took off his big black hat and handed each student a small black book that entitled the guide to blessings we had one week. He told us to prepare for the annual achieve A A spring valley blessing bay, my heart lept. This was just what my mother needed, the blessing.

B would maker, forget all the troubles of our home to have a son who's toma hum a White student that was the ultimate. Her brother was a respected rabby. And if her husband couldn't be one, well, maybe her son could be.

The guide to blessing was a seventy page long listing of hundreds of different foods, soups, bread, fish, desserts. I flip through IT, slowly realizing the size of the chAllenge to lay ahead for lawful hearing. Eg, plant palmers on. I had my work cut out for me.

Friday afternoons, the achieve a closed early that we could all rush home to help our parents prepare for shop is the sabbath. Roby boyer told us that the sages tell us that the tower r tells us that the preparation for chaus is equal to the importance of chavez itself. Most of my preparations involved searching the house for kosher wine in pouring IT down the toilet.

IT was a thankless jar by admitted to nobody. My father's frustrated rage at not having his manage of its cond group was fearsome. But IT was far Better than his drunken rage if he did have IT.

I searched the pantry. I I searched the garage. I searched my father's closet. But I was only eight years old, and I was always a bottle of km hiding somewhere I just hadn't thought to check.

That night, my father, drunk on a bottle of blush eb that got away, grabbed my older brother by a shirt color and dragged him away from the chavez table. He dragged him all the way down the stairs to our a bedroom in the basement and slam the door shut. Even the silver were jumped.

Who wants the last smuts ble? All my mother asked. I made extra. When my brother returned to the table, his nose was bleeding. My mother brother him a can of frozen orange juice to hold against the back of his neck, which was supposed to somehow stop the bleeding.

Rarely, buyer taught us that IT is prohibited to defrost orange juice and chavez because changing food from solid to liquid is considered cooking, and cooking is considered working, and even god refraining from working on chavez. There are thirty nine different categories of work that are prohibited on chavez. That's also why you not allowed to switch on lights on chavez.

The electricity causes a film ament to glow, which is considered burning, which is considered working category number two. My father came back to the table and drunkenly saying a few chavez songs, fudging the words and banging heavily on the table with this fest eyesi hunched cover apps and minority drawing circles on the condensation that had formed on the silver water. My father slept my hand chabas.

He shouted, writing category number five. Eventually, he stumbled off his bedroom and fell a sleep, snowing loudly. We shout in the dining room and picked glumm's at our food.

The following monday morning, as we all SAT studying from our blessing books, there was a knock on red by bryers classroom door, and rabbi Green bound the issue of a principle. Solomon I entered, we all rose. The two rabbit is conferred quietly for a moment before signaling us all to be seated.

After a few thoughtful strokes of his long black beard, rabbi Green down side deeply and informed us at the night before our classmate of rome, gruner ammi father, had suffered a heart attack and died. Some kids have all the luck, bless. That is the one true judge.

That by bryer nodding his head blasts, that is the one true judge. We all answered, not in our heads. I wondered what mr. Green about might have done to deserve death.

Did he bow down to idols? Did he walk four steps without his yak on whatever IT was? IT must have been pretty bad as where my Green bomb turn to leave if he paused and with a stern shake of his finger reminded us all that the sage is tell us that the tory tells us, until the age of thirteen, all of a boy's sins are scribed his father.

I turned to look at rome's empty chair. A romi was a chubby kid with heavy earth. Dunchurch fell breath, but a sudden respect for him grew inside me.

I wondered what he might have done to causes father's death. Whatever IT was, IT must have been pretty bad. Scaling fiercely, rabbi Green dam advised each and every one of us to pray a sham.

The holy one blessed be he for forgiveness, so that he wouldn't kill our fathers too. My heart left. Bless IT is a sham.

He said, bless IT is a sham. We answered, bless IT is a sham was right. All of a sudden, I had two ways.

I could save my family. I could win the blessing bee for my mother, or I could sin so much. Sham would have to kill my father.

courageous. I my grown about maybe one showest night he had switched on a light. Maybe he drank milk after eating meat, maybe he touched himself that night. Just before bed, I ate a drumstick, washed IT down with some milk, touched to myself, and flick the Better light on off, break those lights and i'll break your hands. My father shouted, IT was going to be a busy week.

The blessing b worked the same way as a spelling b. There are six basic blessings on food hamilt the blessing for bread mazo OS the blessing for White. Her define the blessing for wine or grape juice.

Her aides the blessing for things that grow from trees. Hi drama, the blessing for things that grow from the earth and shahada, the blessing for everything else. Bao hamilt open, al mizuno s the filter fish shahak.

The blessing for everything else. But that was the easy part. Things became much more complicated when you started combining foods.

Some food is superior to other foods, and in combination with subordinate foods, the superior food gets the blessing. To make matters worse, some blessings are superior to other blessings. And you had to know which blessings to recite first.

This is where they separated the men from the boys. Spaghetti balls misonne weed blessing than shahak o that everything else blessing. Serial with milk.

Shahak o for the milk. Then mazza s for the witness. Erie twice. The chocolate Candy with the cookie crunch trick question twice is enclosure. I spent the next week singing and blessing and blessing and singing, alternately praising god, and then define him as much as one eight year old possibly could. Monday morning, I stuff ed myself.

I had a bull of fruity pebbles mazo OS, a slice of toast, a moi, a glass of juice shahak o half apple, her ads and a couple of old french fries I found at the bottom of the fridge hyda a one meal by blessings. Tuesday I touched myself. I also partick of bread without first ceremoniously washing my hands in that evening, before going to sleep, I SAT on the edge of my bed and carefully recited, and as a dozen times each, my father bank angrily on my bedroom door lights out.

He barked, I smiled for you and me both, pal. Wednesday, I still five dollars for my mother and didn't recite any blessings at all on the bag full of Candy that I bought with IT a trust and shoe, which is trained to begin with in a chunk y, which would have finished a hockhocking. I weren't trying to kill my father, a chunky with raisons shahak o than her aid.

Thursday, I didn't word set this now by buyer, noticed that the strings weren't dangling from my sides and grab me by the ear, and pulled me to the front of the class. Speak to the children of israel. He quoted loudly from the toa as he banked me hard in my bottom and tell them to make sizz on the corners of their garments.

That afternoon, after not respecting my elders by taking out the garbage like my mother I told me to, I touched myself and silently beg god to justice once credit those sense to ebi broyles account. Later, I defined a prayer book by Carrying IT into the bathroom. The blessing b was the following morning, and I could barely sleep.

Lento soup moon as potato kish ida root beer is IT a root is IT a beer. S. I tossed and turned, I blessed and cursed, and finally I fell into an uncomfortable sleep. After we at home, a roic roomba conveniently returned to school just in time for the blessing bee. IT was all I could do to not only over and ask him how he did IT.

I want me tell me, what's a lobster? Do you eat lobster? But by bryer told us that the sage is, tell us that the tour tells us that when Abraham died as sham comforted asic, we learn from this, that IT is a tremendous missa or good deed to comfort the beaver are by buyer, instructed us all to line up at a romney desk to shake his hand and recite the traditional mourners consolation may have sham come for you.

Among the mourners of sign being just eight years old, I wasn't entirely familiar with a sham system, but IT occurred to me that, along with all my sons, my father might also be getting all my mets bus. I wasn't taking any chances soon. IT was my turn in line.

How is IT going? I said that running where by brier pinched me. How I screamed shmendrik. He rumbled after the last boy had asked her, shamed to comfort running among the mornings of ion, robby boyer smacked his desk loudly. The blessing be began.

We lined up at the back of the classroom, nervously pulling on our city and touring our pace. The rules were simple, name the correct blessing and remain standing for the next round. Name the wrong blessing, and you take your seat.

Last year's winner, you can see a almona hoodies neck stood beside me. He lean comly against the wall, mindlessly picking his nose. A slander sholom called out up by buyer.

I stepped forward apple. He shouted apple. I called out her ates the blessing for food from trees, correct? Rob bryer said the blessing beer usually started off pretty easy.

David bargain got tuna shahak o the everything else blessing our machine, sky got matter how moti the blessing for bread and arby tugman got stuck with huggles, which he thought was a dma food from the earth, but was really missing onus, the blessing on weight. Three other kids got taken out by old mail borchers, with sour cream claimed to others. And by the end of the first round, almost a third of the students were already back in their seats.

Round two, elsland ander, shown called up by buyer. I stepped forward, mushroom barby soup. He shouted, mushroom burley soup, mushroom burley soup. Dam, I knew I should have studied the chapter on soup more. I'd wasted a half a week on on trace.

Was that I dumb on the mushrooms which came from the earth? Or was mazza s on the maybe wish a haco, the everything else blessing on the soup? Mushroom, barely soup.

I called out mizz roby brier tug on his beard, his eyes narrowing into angry little slit. And shahak I added, or by buyer, tries anally smacked his desk signal that I was correct. Apple shooter took out David bargin, yoo levin and slam o.

palmer's. My friend mutch Greenberg cut, stuck with cheese cake. And I could televised by the expression on his face that he had absolutely no idea. He wisely offered two answers, one for them crossed and one for thick, and somehow managed to stay alive. IT was hard to believe this was only round two.

A romney stepped forward. I smiled at mute. A romney may have killed his father, but he wasn't very bright, and he never did well at these things.

He was lucky to even be in the second round at all. Bagel shouted up by buyer vehicle. I looked at much in this belief.

Was he kidding? Bal bagel called out of running how this was correct. Shat buyer, very good. A frame Green blood, a romy abstinent newly Frankl, all got out on chAllen with barley and large pieces of meat while chop liver on hole with slice of letters. And a bit of olive took out for more, including mute.

And then there were three IT was just, you could see a woman hood snack of army grown and me. Round three began our slander sholom called out by bryer. I stepped forward.

Ice cream. Shouted, a rubber brayer in a cone. Ice cream, a coon. I scream, a coin.

I knew ice cream, but why would you add the coin? Was there something different if I was in a coin? What was an ice cream coin made of anyway? Was IT cake? Was IT a waver ice cream in a coon robby? Buyer shouted, is the ice cream subordinate to the coal? is? Is the coin subordinate to the ice cream? If it's a sugar cone, maybe you really desire the cone ice cream in a cone or my brother shouted again, I had no choice ice cream in a cone.

I called out no blessing. Everyone in the classroom turned to face me, looking back on the whole episode, where by boyer had really left me no choice, no blessing, said robby, bye. Why no blessing? Because I explained nervously, towering my cities, because, because the room smells like duty. There was a long silence, mute, giggled and others followed, where by buyer slowly rose to his feet, his thick fists pushing themselves into the desktop.

IT may have been a loophole, but technically speaking, I was correct where by brier himself had told us that our sages tell us that the towa tells us that there were three situations in which one is absolutely prohibited from a citing a blessing, one while facing a male over the age of nine years old whose genitals are showing. Two, while facing a female over the age of three years old whose genitals are showing in three in the presence of faces. Frankly, given the other two options, I think I chose the least defensive answer.

For a big man or a boyer moved pretty quickly. It's true, I said, as a barrel toward me, the tourist says that he grabs me roughly by my ARM, lifting me clear off the ground and drag me towards the door, shouting angrily. Initiated the whole time, but IT smells like duty.

I yelled, the room smells like duty. Wait, there's a naked girl in the room. There's a naked girl.

The doors slammed shut behind me. I stood in the hallway and robb, my Bruce ARM, I began to cry. The blessing b was lost. I was not a great rabby and my father was still not dead.

I tiptoed, told the classroom door, and listen closely. Two minutes later you can see us. Alan ehud sh.

Neck fell victim to moza bri with maple syrup. And the last man standing was a rome grown about apples caught T. A roby buyer. Apples are all my answered ates muscle tuv cola ver lawyer muscle tub 炒 肉包。

That night, we had the traditional friday night to fell to fish shahak a with a little slice of carrot harda. My father was drunk again, singing chavez songs, fudging the words and being heavily on the table. With this fest, my mother went into the kitchen and brought out the soup.

When my brother said he didn't want any, my father slapped him, pushed him over backward onto the floor and poured the hot chicken soup onto his face. My mother took my brother into the bathroom and SAT with him on the edge of the bathtub, pressing a cold wash cloth against his cheeks. And I went back to the dining room to wipe the chicken soup off of the floor.

Chicken soup is is shara. Even if IT was cooked with vegetables, since chicken is the dominant taste in the soup, good by brother told us that the sages tell us that the tower tells us that the holy one blessed. He sent the egyptians ten plagues in order to teach us that he gives people many chances to repent. And only then, if they still continue to send, does he punish them with death. I went downstairs to my bedroom, took four steps without my amon, touched myself, look the lights off and on, and fell asleep.

Chili house hander, his author of many great books, the story appears in his member for skin. His most recent book is called .

fat and mare I want and last. To the radium passed. I stood and watched for.

Gram with by me and blue shopping without spines. G is in britain july ster tritill jack mixing up today by jared for and Katherine mondo production help help today's rerun from mattei's, ny. And andy garson.

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