Kidnapping

Go back and read Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 if you already haven’t, I’ll wait.

Day 3: cont. A little before 3:00PM I wandered into the cafeteria to refill my mug with ice from the machine. This in of itself is not unusual as I normally do this around that same time most days, but had Rob actually gone in there to drop off any ransom he probably of would have figured he’d confirmed my participation in the kidnapping. He was nowhere to be seen and neither were any Wal-Mart bags.

Day 4: On Thursday morning I made up one more ransom note:

I didn’t take a picture, so I had to recreate it with clip art, but Mark found me a dead cricket and I taped one of it legs to the piece of paper. Using the “roachrobbie83” yahoo mail address I sent a second check your mailbox note with the subject line “Where’s The Ransom?” Rob replied via email:

please don’t hurt her. Penelope F Chickenetia is a very loving creature. they don’t have blue bags. we need more time. how to you expect a guy to come with with that kinda loot in such a short time.
I’ve got white bags with blue wal mart writing. will that do?

Later that afternoon he accosted both Mark and I separately with one bottle of RC Cola in a Wal-Mart bag. We were sticking with our story of knowing nothing about it, I even tried to toss the blame at one of his cubical neighbors, but he wouldn’t believe us.

Day 5: On Friday I decided that enough was enough and if I had an opportunity I would just return Rob’s dead roach back to his cubical where his was last seen a week ago. About mid morning I stood up to get a drawing out of the printer and noticed Rob walking down the hall towards the other end of the plant, I made a quick u-turn and got the bug. No one saw me place it back and I’m not sure if he was messing around or not, but when Mark walked by and pointed out that his bug was back he seemed surprised and overjoyed.

Later that afternoon Rob brought me the bottle in a bag saying he didn’t drink RC and that I had earned it. I replied, “I don’t really like RC either, but thanks.” and took the drink.

Day 8: On Monday morning when the vending machine guy came in to refill the drink machines I traded him the RC and a quarter for a 20oz bottle of Dr. Pepper. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

The End

Go back and read Parts I, 2 and 3 if you already haven’t, I’ll wait.

Day 3: I decide to lay it on thick today. The picture with the newspaper isn’t good enough in this day and age, we need video! Fortunately my digicam, like most today, can take short movies. First I scour the web to find plans for an small origami chair. I found a couple, but they seem overly complex, so I opt for an easier one. A little dental floss and I head off to the same studio with available daily newspaper as yesterday:

httpvh://youtu.be/73JjdyZsXFs

I sent Rob the video as an attachment using the newly opened yahoo email account, the body of the message simple stated, “Check your mailbox.” Inside his mailbox was note number three, the instructions for the ransom drop:

Part V

Go back and read Parts I and 2 if you already haven’t, I’ll wait.

Day 1 (cont.): Mark and I do not interact with Rob too often, so we couldn’t very well walk up and ask, “Hey. What’s new?” right after he got the fax without arousing suspicion. We laid low, waiting to hear through the grapevine of Rob’s reaction. We heard nothing. Maybe that free internet fax thing didn’t work.*

*We didn’t know until much later in the week that the fax had actually gotten through. And when he got it Rob went up to our “receptionist”, who also forwards all the incoming faxes via email to the recipients, and asked who sent it, she couldn’t tell any more than he could from the ad supported cover page. He did say to her that it had Brian written all over it. Unfortunately my reputation proceeds me as I have really earned my in house nickname of Arts & Crafts Engineer.

Day 2: On Tuesday morning I prepared a second ransom note that we would slip in his mailbox or maybe to be sure, just stick it on his desk. Having watched enough Lifetime TV movies I knew that any good kidnapper would have a picture taken of the victim with that day’s newspaper to show 1) they actually had the victim and 2) they were unharmed (although #2 didn’t really matter in this case):

That afternoon when Mark walked by Rob in the hall, Rob was giving him a look. Mark asked ever so innocently, “What’s happening?” Rob tilted his head and followed Mark’s path said, “I’ve got my eye on you.” Later I received the same treatment as I casually passed by Rob’s cubical. He obviously suspects us, but cannot prove it…

Part IV

Go back and read Part I if you already haven’t, I’ll wait.

The Plan: Kidnap the Roach. Rob’s day is spent mostly sitting in front of the computer and dealing with the engineers in surrounding cubicles, so he is not often not out of sight from his beloved Penelope (Pen-ah-lohp). Mark and I decided that whoever noticed Rob away from his desk they would scoop the roach up and tuck it away in my cube somewhere. My “office” was chosen because of its proximity to Rob’s, this way we wouldn’t have to explain to any random co-worker we passed why we might be carrying around a slightly mummified bug.

The Grab: On the afternoon of Friday before last, Mark passed by Rob’s cube and he wasn’t there. Because of our company’s flex time plan on Fridays about half the front office staff works only half the day. I was one of them, Rob was working that afternoon, but elsewhere, so it was a perfect time to kidnap the roach as there was a greatly reduced chance of any witnesses. The roach was placed in its holding cell, a small translucent plastic box that a machine had come in, and placed unobtrusively on my desk.

The Ransom: The following Monday morning, using a couple of fonts I found on the web, ransom note & ransom, I created a note to let Rob know that his dead bug had been snatched not just tossed away when the cleaning crew finally decided to check his cubical wall. I didn’t want to just put it in his company mail slot, I didn’t know how often he checked it, Maybe I should fax it to him. Well how can I do that without giving away where it came from? Then I remembered from awhile back when I needed a fax, that there was a web site that offered free faxing, faxZERO. I ran into a stumbling block, they needed an valid email address to confirm the sending of the fax. No problem, I opened a Yahoo email account using my gmail account as a confirmation. So I made a PDF of the note and faxed it to our victim:

Part III