=========== CONTRACTORS =========== Just suppose your new home wasn't quite what the contractor ordered and promised. If you're lucky, you'll discover this sad fact before he's done working on the house. If not, you'll have to chase him to his next job site. I once went through that many years ago, and it can be fun. Anyway, here's what you do. Erect a huge sign on your lot that says something like, BUY THIS UNDER-CONSTRUCTED, POORLY DONE HOME--CHEAP. Display the contractor's name and telephone number prominently. When he comlains, tell him you wouldn't think of subjecting your family to the horrors of living in such a poorly constructed dump, and if he buys it you'll take down the sign. Have a list of things you think are wrong with the house. You have already shown him your list if you had to eventually resort to the big sign. Show him again. The heading of the list should state his name, address, and telephone number along with your general beef about the poor quality of his work, followed by the specific complaints. Mimeograph this list so your contractor will think you're handing them out faster than a politician's calling card. It's worked well in the past. You should get your grievances satisfied. A man calling himself Hank suggests one for the construction trade. He says that if your mark is building anything from concrete and you or your allies have access to that concrete before it is poured, add concentrated hydrochloric acid to it. Hank claims, "I've seen it work--it causes slow but continual deterioration of the structure from corrosion." ============ CREDIT CARDS ============ Designed as a credit convenience for consumers and a big profit turner for business, credit cards are impersonal pieces of plastic whose power potential can be awesome. The only way to use a credit card intelligently is to pay off each month's balance, avoiding the outrageously high interest charges. But even paying on time doesn't always guarantee perfection. You are dealing with computers when you use credit cards. God help you if the computer rings you up as owing more money than you do or if the computer slaps you with late payment, resulting in an interest charge. Yes, there are consumer-protection laws designed to help you. But as more than a few people will tell you, there is often a great deal of difference between principal and principle. Kathy Ross had a bad time with magazine-subscription service through which she ran a credit-card charge. Not only did her new subscriptions get mixed up with renewals, but she was charged for items she never ordered. She followed the consumer-protection rules, and within seven months she was being billed for fifty dollars in interest charges alone, still didn't have the subscription mess straightened out, and was getting dunning letters from the credit-card company, calling her irresponsible. Computers didn't understand her human pleas for logical service. Kathy never did get justice. She paid the charges, finally giving up because "it was easier." If you can get the mark's credit-card number, order a huge bunch of mail-order merchandise for him/her. Use the telephone to order things too. The secret here, according to a former security agent for one of the card companies, is to keep the amount of each individual purchase under forty dollars, because telephone confirmations are made on greater amounts. Just make hundreds of forty-dollar purchases in a short time. Using the mark's credit-card information to place telephone orders involves some investigation, according to Robert Schoster, a master manipulator. Sometimes, Schuster will simply call the mark's home, pretending to be a verification clerk at some local credit union or bank. Schuster gives the mark's full name and address, then asks the mark or the mark's spouse to please verify the credit-card numbers. If it works, and Schuster says it does ninety-nine percent of the time, you are now ready to order all sorts of goods and services on behalf of the mark. If you don't have his/her credit-card number and you feel honest, don't steal with it. Go a step beyond and report the mark's card as stolen. Pretend you are the mark. That will cause some upset for the real mark when he/she tries to use the card a week or so later. This is fraud, but one recycled Yippie who is now billed as a professional psychic for the various supermarket tabloids told me how he applied for and got various credit cards merely by lying on his application. Easily getting cards, he would run the credit to the extreme and beyond on the cards, survive the corporate dunning letters, then move to a new location without benefit of forwarding address. Despite my doubts, several corporations I asked denied that they passed along these losses to the rest of us in the form of outrageous intrest charges. ======================= DELIVERY OF CONSUMABLES ======================= For years kids have ripped off beer distributors' trucks, pizza wagons, etc. The scam is to call the place from a pay phone and give them a fake name in some high-rise apartment. Give them the pay-phone number and stick around there for a while, since some places call back to confirm orders. When the truck arrives with the order, and while he is up there trying to find a nonexistent customer, you could help yourself to what's left in the truck. Why would anyone want rip off an innocent beer-delivery truck or pizza wagon? Fred Littman has one reason, saying "I ordered a pizza at one place locally, and it was awful. I spoke with the manager, and he told me to get lost and refused to give me my money back. I figured I had some free pizza coming to make up for that." Lefty Gaylor has another reason: "We swipe beer from only one distributor, because everyone knows he's a big Mafia type, and they rip off everyone else, so why not steal from them?" Isn't stealing from the Mafia dangerous? "Not if you don't get caught, and this one's too dumb to know any better. He blames the drivers, and they get mad and figure if they're gonna get blamed, they might as well steal beer from him. That way we multiply our efforts." Perhaps the Justice Department could find some use for Lefty and his boys. ============= DIRTY OLD MEN ============= If you know some jerk who's a terminal lecher, not just a dirty old man, but a truly, grossly obnoxious swine, the following is a sure-fire method that's right on target. You need either three or four associates, depending on whether you personally want to go into the field on this one. One of your associates must be a comely young lady. The drill goes like this. The mark is told about the young lady. She is described as being either an unfaithful wife or a hot-to-trot daughter, depending on the age and circumstance. The mark is told she has eyes and everything else for him, and that if he wants to have a lot of heavy action, you or an associate will make the introduction. As you approach the fateful house on the evening decided upon, you or your associate, acting as a "guide," must stress that the husband or father is a fiery and jealous man and that she takes you on as a secret lover because of insatiable lust, etc. Build up both the sexual suspense and the thrill of the forbidden. You have to get his adrenaline and imagination cooking really well. The mark and his guide are at the door and the sweet young thing opens it and moans out a greeting. She should be dressed--or undressed--in the appropriate fashion. The mark should have just enough time to wet his lips and survey her architectural lines. About the time his eyes bug is time for the next act. Instantly, a large man comes roaring around the corner of the house, bellowing in rage about the honor of his wife or daughter. The guide screams in shrill terror, "Run! Run like hell! It's the husband [or father]!" As the mark and guide start to dash away, a couple of shots are fired, and the guide falls. As he falls, he screams to the mark, "Jesus, keep running! He's killed me!" Another shot rings out; then all is silent. All is not really silent. The mark's heart is probably thudding against his chest like a caged elephant. It's a great idea to carry on with this scenario for a few days, with you or another conspirator, who has been undercover, keeping the mark apprised of the guide's condition from the supposed gunshot wound. It would also be good to float the rumor that the father or husband is spending all his time looking for "the other bastard who got away." The mark won't stop his fearful shakes long enough to wonder why the police haven't arrested the husband or father. Maybe, when he does come to this logical question, he will call the police and ask for protection. This scam turns a lot of corners before the mark finally realizes that he's been had. The police probably won't be as amused as you are, but you'll not know about that. The mark will. If you know the right street people, and if you're going into dirty tricks you must know them, you will have trickster access to ladies with social diseases. Some of the veterans of the streets will help you out between treatments for a price. Younger, less-experienced ladies don't know they have the diseases, but their pimp or madam does. Think how much fun it would be if you could hire one of these venereal versions of Typhoid Mary to dazzle, pick up, and seduce your mark. This scam has been pulled off successfully by at least four people I know personally. It is not that hard if you plan, bargain, and buy ahead. ===== DRUGS ===== Once, a very close friend of mine was badly hurt by a former employee who not only had been stealing from the company, but when the employee left, she said and did some terrible things that damaged my friend personally and professionally. Revenge was the best medicince, and he did extract his dose. He waited a year to get even. It was worth it. The woman has moved to another job in a city about two hundred miles away, in the next state. Having access to drugs, my friend got a small amount of cocaine and planted it in her car during a special visit to the other city for just that purpose. He then used a pay phone to call police and give them the lady's name. He told them that she'd just burned him on a drug deal and that he was turning her in because of it. As this is written, the case is going to court. Happily for my friend, this female actually had a bit of marijuana on her person when she got busted for the planted coke. Talk about good luck. The third stroke of luck was that this bust took place in New York State. He has followed the case through the other city's newspaper and through a friend. He says the police aren't buying her story of innocence. The best part is that by now, she can't think of anyone who would have a motive to hurt her. Having drugs around is a very dangerous risk. But if the stakes are right, it can become a very serious business for the mark. You should know that your call to the police will be recorded. Disguise you voice mechanically by using a rerecording tape, or inhale some helium from a balloon just before you make the call, since it will alter you voice totally. If you're a good thespian, try to use a foreign or regional accent. Speak very softly, also. Don't stay on the line for more than thirty to forty-five seconds. Do your number and hang up. An old head like William Harvey would get a chuckle from this, if he were still with us to enjoy it. If his mark was straight or naive about dope, Bill thought it was fun to mail him/her bagfuls of chopped weeds, oregano, etc., with some incense sprinkled on for scent. As an added touch he included one or two joints rolled using the bogus weed, with a note saying, "Enjoy the samples on me." These materials were mailed to the mark's home address using a slight variation in the spelling of the name. Ideally, the mark thought she/he had been confused as an innocent dupe in a dope deal. After a day or two, Harvey had a male with a rough, raspy voice call the mark to ask if some package had been misdirected to him/her by accident. The caller suggested that other, nastier accidents might happen if the mark did anything uncool like calling the authorities. Naturally, the mark already had done this. What would you expect a mark-type person to do? After all, that's how people get to be marks. As a postgraduate version of this scam, Harvey used to send a package containing some suspicious-looking white crystalline powder (sometimes with a touch of brown) using the same bit just described. ===================== ENVIRONMENTAL RAPISTS ===================== If you dislike land rapists, such as big developers, big real estaters, gas and oil drillers, etc., then your first order of business is to read Edward Abbey's THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG, twice. The first time you read for fun and pleasure; the second reading might be for tactics, as in a manual. For example, if you've had unpleasant dealings with utility companies "creating progress" in your area, for example building roads, drilling gas or oil wells, stripping coal, deep mining, etc. you know the feelings. The monkey wrenchers have an answer. Note the advice of one of Abbey's protagonists: "Always pull up survey stakes. Anywhere you find them. Always. That's the first goddamned general order in this monkey wrench business. Always pull up survey stakes." He should have added that you should always disguise the dirt from the stake hole, tamp it down, and disguise the scar, so the enemy cannot simply replace the stake. A further suggestion would be to move the survey stakes...perhaps enough that a lawsuit could be instituted against the environmental rapists. According to a Cat operator I shared several lemonades with a few times, Karo syrup poured into the fuel tank of heavy machinery is enough to deadline the equipment for a thorough bit of maintenance. "It'll turn to solid carbon, that syrup, and seize the engine up tight. It makes a helluva mess of an engine. I'd suggest about three to four quarts per tankful. "Now look, though," he cautioned, his eyes glinting hard enough to stare open clam shells at a hundred yards, "if you did that to my own machine I'd come after you hard. But if it was a company machine or if they'd leased my machine, hell, I'd probably buy you a drink afterward!" In the summer of 1978, about 150 angry farmers in Minnesota held a beer-and-hot-dog party to celebrate the coming of the "bolt weevils." The party and the "weevils" cost a utility giant a quarter of a million dollars. The farmers were fighting mad over the invasion of the huge utility conglomerates who were running their power towers and lines across the countryside, ruining farms and dairy operations. All legal and moral efforts to oppose this land rape failed. That's when the "bolt weevils" came to the farmers' rescue. After beating off state police by using Wrist Rocket slingshots to fire ball bearings at patrol-car windows, the farmers brought out their wrenchs and cutting tools. Soon, after two of the 150-foot-tall, hundred-thousand-dollar transmission towers lay smashed on the ground, victims of the "bolt weevils." A dozen years ago, these farmers were staunch, conservative Americans, firmly behind "their" government, and they claim that the radicals of the sixties were right. That's comforting, at last. One farmer says, "The goddamn government's playing red herring, bleating about Arab terrorists and weathermen and the underground. Hell, it's the people -- us, the little people -- they better watch out for. We're the revolutionaries, and we're ready to fight. "They may finish this power line and others, but the greedy, land-raping bastards will never keep it in operation. There's not enough guards for that. And more people are coming around to our way." You could almost hear an echo of "All the power to the people," with not hint of a pun. A major gas company was ripping and raping all over the countryside, using the national need for natural gas as its excuse for avarice. One landowner whose livestock were distupted by the gas-drilling operation decided to get even, quietly. Farmer Dale explained, "I knew a little bit about the state environmental regulations, so I decided to help the gas company violate as many of them as I could, even if it mean sacrificing a few things of my own. "Late one evening, I kicked over the hose from their fuel tank and opened the valve. By morning, the result was nearly seven hundred gallons of diesel fuel in the stream below my place. It took members of the sportmen's club about a mile downstream two hours to get state officials out there to the well site. Because of a phone call I'd made earlier, the local newspaper sent a reporter, too. "Later that day, I dumped my barrel of old crankcase oil on the drilling access road, and you should have seen the foreman's pickup when it hit that oil. He slammed through my cornfield. I acted really wild, raising hell about first polluting our stream, then wrecking my crops and spilling oil on the road. He was shook up to beat hell and blamed his own truckers for leaking oil. I billed their company for three-hundred dollars in damages, and he endorsed the bill for payment right there." Farmer Dale did some other things that week, like move and replace those "Underground Cable" markers used by the power and phone companies to mark buried wires. Naturally, the driller's dozer tore up the real wires, creating further havoc. He sprayed weed killer on his own crops, within a hundred-yard radius of the gas well, then raised hell witht the state agricultural people. He submitted a bill for a thousand dollars for damaging his crops, although the gas company balked -- at first. "Finally I dumped some chemicals in my old well and had the water tested (he had had the water tested prior to the drilling, of course) by the county. They reported it had gotten polluted during the time the gas well was being drilled. I turned it all over to my attorney at this time." His attorney filed to have the drilling permit revoked and also to sue the company for huge damage settlements. The case was settled out of court, allowing the company to finish its rape, yet at a very high price, including unlimited free gas and a lot of cash for Farmer Dale. Another combatant in the never-ending war between the land rapists and landowners or environmentalists borrowed the old OSS tire-spike idea, married it to the Malay gate of Indochinese fame, and put some heavy vehicles on the shelf for a while. Angered because the well drillers for a natural-gas company were filling their mammoth water-tank trucks from a trout stream that ran through his property, a landowner spiked their plans. He took a two-inch-thick piece of twelve-inch board and pounded five ten-inch housing spikes through it. The board was about eighteen inches long. He did the same thing to another board. The ambush site was the deeply rutted pull-off spot the heavy water trucks used when they sucked thousands of gallons of good water from the clean stream. The giant trucks had callously dug deep ruts, which filled with water from their sloshing loads. Our combatant placed his spiked boards tips upward, into the ruts. He did this on a random schedule over a one-month period, disabling a total of seven trucks and finally forcing the land rapists and their trucks to another fill-up point. As a postscript, he enjoyed this activity so much that he built dozens of the spike devices and became a traveling one-man hit squad, placing the traps whenever he saw evidence of the heavy water-tank trucks. ========== EXPLOSIVES ========== Now that the feds have outlawed fireworks, you'd better save all the M80s you can find. Extremely versatile devices, M80s are excellent propellants for other substances. For example, this stunt started out as a dorm prank at Clapper Packer University but soon escalated into more deadly sport, which went like this. Put some fresh feces, the looser the bettter, into a large Baggie. Gently break the glass on a large-wattage lightbulb, but do not disturb the filament. Even more gently attach the filament to the fuse of the M80. Screw the bulb carefully back into a ceiling socket. Finally, move the bag of feces up and around the light fixture. Be certain the fuse and filament do not touch the feces, but see that the M80 is into the substance. Tape the bag to the ceiling. Naturally, all this presupposes you have access to the mark's room or to a room where the mark is likely to be the one who comes in and turns on the light. One cautionary note: Be sure the light switch is off when you screw in the bulb. If it's not, you have about four seconds to avoid getting nasty coverage from the M80's blast. Done correctly, this is a spectacular stunt. As the designer of this one, George Dierk adds, "You don't have to limit your spatter substance to feces. Paint, cheap perfume, acid, and CS gas all have their place." Gun powder has a lot of uses in addition to filling up a portion of cartridges. If your mark has an outdoor barbecue, you could sprinkle a cup of old-fashioned black powder around the bottom of the grill. When the powder ignites it will do so with a huge, whooshy flash, accompanied by a great white cloud of smelly smoke. I would hate to imagine the multiple effects of such a pyrotechnical display on one of those fancy grills powdered by LP gas. Wow! Don't let your imagination rest with the cookout grill. Remember fireplaces, wood stoves, ovens, etc. The experts suggest you use black powder rather than the more modern smokeless powders. Black powder really works! If you can't get a regular smoke-bomb device, a smoke grenade, or something real from the military, make your own. According to Doctor Abraham Hoffman, the noted chemist, you combine four parts sugar to six-parts saltpeter (potassium nitrate). You heat this mixture over a very low flame until it starts to blend into a plastic substance. When it begins to gel, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool. He suggests you stick a few wooden match heads into the mass while it's still pliable. You also add a fuse at this point. The smoke device is nonexplosive and nonflammable. But a pound of this mixture will produce enough thick smoke to cover a city block. Watch which way the wind blows. John E Warrenburger likes to mess up people's nervous systems. One of his favorite nonlethal tricks involving nonexplosives is a good bit of cardiac theater. John says, "I bundle a few of those road flares -- the ones in the red jackets -- together and wrap them with black plastic tape. Connect this with some coiled wiring to a ticking alarm clock and place it so your mark will get the full visual and aural effect." Applause, applause, John. Only God and the mark's launderer will know how dastardly the frightening effect of the bogus bomb is on the mark's nervous system. ======= FILLERS ======= Trickster Aynesworth Belin is thrilled with the recent introduction of the super-foam products. These are urethane-and-resin compounds, usually in a spray can, which billow out and expand into a mass at least thirty times the original volume. They harden quickly, often within five minutes. Another version is a two-part liquid that when mixed does even more astounding things. One quart will give you the equal of 150 pounds of plaster. A gallon of super foam will make eight cubic feet of the ultrastrong material, which is water, erosion, and corrosion proof, as well as heat and cold resistant. The irony is that these products have been marketed by major corporations for various legitimate filler jobs. They rely on advertising and societal brainwashing to make certain the lulled citizens use the product only for its duly intended purpose. If there was ever a product that belongs in the arsenal of the dirty trickster, this one is it. I took an informal survey of fifteen hardware stores in my area. All had the product in stock. Yet one clerk told me, "Most [buyers] are young kids...got no good use in mind." I bet some of them have a very good use to mind. What can I say but, "Try it, you'll like it," even if the mark won't? ======= FORGERY ======= Forgery is a fine art form, very useful to the trickster. During World War II, for example, the British Security Coordination often forged letterheads, documents, and official cables to thwart Hitler's efforts in the early dark days of 1939 through 1941. Some of their efforts were spectacular, especially in South America, working covertly with sympathetic American officials, officially neutral at that time. Some of their tactics are highly adaptable to today's dirty trickster. Full details are yours for the reading in A MAN CALLED INTREPID. Another excellent reference is THE NEW PAPER TRIP, which will give you everything you need to know about forging to get even. ============ GARAGE SALES ============ Ever have a garage sale? Ever been to one? They're incredible, and they seem to bring out the most in worst people. Even I, a thick-skinned, terminal misanthrope, was awed at the gall of some people who demand to see your entire house or who pound on your door at 6:00 A.M. to get a "head start" on a garage sale you announced in the paper starting at 9:00 A.M. Getting the message? Let's have a garage sale at your mark's residence. Or let's have it in your mark's name but at the neighbor's address. List all sorts of outlandish bargains and tell people you have guns, old china, glassware, and dozens of inexpensive antiques. You want obnoxious gawkers, not buyers. Remember that! Naturally, the mark and/or the neighbor will know nothing of this until the first knock on the door at 6:00 A.M. "I used to get all sorts of odd-hour calls from home-remodeling-and-repair salespeople at this one local company," recalls Jim Kenslogger. "I must have called them a half dozen times to ask that my name and number be removed from their files. No luck. So I decided to change my luck. "I learned who their chief executive was and pulled the bogus-garage-sale number on him, complete with newspaper ad. Then I started calling his home at odd hours, asking if he were the party having the garage sale. He was really out of sorts after about a week of this. "I stopped, and about ten days later I got another routine sales call from his company. I called right back, asked to speak to that executive, and told him I was damn tired of being bothered by his salespeople and could he get them to stop calling me. He pledged he would and told me wearily, 'Buddy, I know just how you feel. I'll surely take care of it for you.' I had no trouble after that, so neither did he." ===== GASES ===== A serious dirty trickster should have a supply of ammonium sulfide. This liquid is loads cheaper to buy than milk, booze, or gasoline. It smells so awful that no one, not even the most terminal of coke sniffers, can stand to be around it once it has been brought into play. It may be sprayed or vaporized. Using this stuff as a base, Kurt Saxon offers a very effective formula for making your own stinkum in his book THE POOR MAN'S JAMES BOND. The stuff is so potent that it should have to be registered somehow with someone. Phew. But it's easy to make, and as long as it's harassing your mark's glands, what do you care? A little leave-behind hostess present can be a small, uncapped bottle of butyric acid. Propped near the door you're closing, it will be knocked over when the mark enters the room. Phew. Crowd-dispersal devices are also good choices for the trickster's arsenal. These include spray cannisters, gas grenades, pens, and other chemical-dispensing weapons. Many of these items may be purchased over the counter in some states. They're generally sold under a variety of trade names and generally contain CS gas, which is a military version of tear gas. If you obtain it without undue risk, MACE is an excellent choice. Many manuals tell you how to make your own MACE. You can buy many of these materials by mail order. Check current shipping regulations and any laws against these devices in your own area first, of course. One of the best mail-order companies in this business is American Colonial Armament, P.O. Box F, Chicago Ridge, Illinois 60415. If you are or can appear to be a law-enforcement official you can have access to a veritable smorgasbord of sophisticated gas weapons by getting a catalog from the F. Morton Pitt Company, at 1444 S. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel, California 91776. Finally, if you prefer to brew up your own gases, get a copy of Kurt Saxon's classic book THE POOR MAN'S JAMES BOND. He tells you how to do it all in your own kitchen workshop. You can get his book from Atlan Formularies, P.O. Box 438, Eureka, California 95501. From Elmer Bill, our gardening editor, comes the charming advice that spray cans of Raid and other insecticides provide you with an improvised defensive weapon. The stuff burns the eyes badly and will fire an eight- to ten-foot spray. This buffet of gaseous ideas is method only. The rationale behind why you would use such tactics is your own business, of course. But at times when people or institutions have done you dirty -- a dose or so of noxious gas may help set the record straight for you. ======== GRAFFITI ======== Contrary to popular belief, some people -- usually the creepy ones you want for this stunt -- do call names and numbers found in bar restrooms. Harvey Rankin and Festerwald Ray proved this premise in their study SCRAWL ON THE WALL. What you learn from them is that you should write you mark's spouse's first name and phone number and a boldly stated sexual attraction (use your imagination) in every restroom of every bar in town. Biker and jock bars are usually the best. As a follow-up, you can tune in your tape deck to a pop country song, call the number yourself, and sound drunk. If you're lucky, the mark will answer. Tell the mark why you're calling and where you got the name and number. It is hoped that you'll be the only ringer among a large crowd of real callers. Commercial graffiti are available in a form known as billboards and posters. You could have posters or billboards printed to announce your mark's coming out of the homosexual closet. Or your bogus billboard could announce a conservative political candidate's personal advocacy of gun control, gay rights, blacks, Chicanos, abortion, etc. Your political candidate may actually support busing. If so, you billboard for him should indicate his violent opposition to it. And so on. Bumper stickers are another form of graffiti. You can get bogus ones printed in the same manner as billboards and posters. Or you can use legitimate purposes, such as slapping strongly adhesive bumper stickers that champion your political canidate -- mark to the painted rear-deck surfaces of automobiles in a shopping-mall lot. It might be fun sometime to sit around thinking up other creatively rotten things you could do with bumper stickers to get even with someone. For example, you could get bumper stickers printed that say, GAY IS GREAT...TRY IT, and place these on the automobiles of local bikers, right wingers, clergy, and others who feel threatened by homosexuals. You could get bumper stickers that say, HONK IF YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE TOO, and put them on the autos of marks whom you feel are qualified. BAN HANDGUNS or HUNT HUNTERS bumper stickers go great on the property of redneck gun nuts. Or put NRA FOREVER! and JUST TRY TO TAKE MY GUN AWAY! on the property of the simple and misguided wimps who really think gun control serves any useful purpose. Other fun bumper stickers can say things like, BEER DRINKERS GET MORE HEAD; SUCK MY TAILPIPE; HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY; HOORAY FOR THE KKK; or DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES. Stickers featuring swastikas or Soviet flags can also be used creatively. ======== HIGHWAYS ======== An activist can have fun on the roadway, too. Can you imagine the damage possible if one were to substitute a road sign that read, GROSS WEIGHT 15 TONS, for the original sign on a bridge that read GROSS LOAD 5 TONS? One protesting employee did this at his employer's Ohio plant and had materials shipments shut down for eight days. In World War II, it was common for enemy agents on all sides to turn road signs so as to misdirect military convoys, screwing up operations. The same tactic could be used today, even if your only enemy is some governmental branch or agency. In the annals of highway history no one has seen the equal of the many low points of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, traditionally a repository for political hacks, Mafia underlings, patronage hogtroughers, and the terminally incompetent. M. Harvey Shopp, a veteran political trickster, has all sorts of suggestions for highway fun such as painting sawhorses to look like official blockades and using them to close highways, bridges, etc. Another of Shopp's ideas is to produce bogus DETOUR signs and place them at strategic locations where they will be sure to screw up highway traffic. The road woes of Allen McDonald illustrate the rationale behind these moves. Whenever the county in which he lived did road repair to the bridge near his home, they always parked their equipment in his yard. When county road scrapers went by, they piled a line of debris high enough to close his driveway. In winter, they also closed his own freshly shoveled driveway, this time with ice-hard snow and frozen slush. All calls to county officials were answered with only the uncaring and operationally impotent cluckings of the tongue. "I decided to return some of the favors," McDonald said. "I began to turn road and other directional signs around. I stole a couple of BRIDGE OUT signs in another county and placed them in front of perfectly good bridges in our county. I once called the local radio station and announced several road repairs that would mandate detours -- telling them I was a county road super, of course -- which really screwed up local traffic for a couple of days. "The upshot is that the county got a lot of nasty calls and even more bad media publicity, and the county commisioners agreed to investigate these problems 'caused' by the road people. Naturally, in the midst of all this I also brought up my beefs about their conduct, offering to testify at the hearings. All abuses against my property quickly stopped. So I stopped my counter-abuse program." Check the "Joggers" section of this book to learn about the OSS tire spikes of World War II infamy. ===== HOMES ===== All sorts of things have homes -- snails, snakes, groundhogs, weasels, Japanese beetles, even marks. One vengeful way of getting even with a mark is to destroy the moat to the castle of his/her home. The idea is to hit close to home, for both physical and the psychological destruction involved. One example started at the apartment of Pat Konely. Because the landlord refused to make needed roof repairs, seceral rainstorms flooded Konely's apartment, damaging personal property. The landlord also refused to pay damages, and Konely didn't have the money to fight the landlord's attorney. Pat Konely admits the response wasn't very funny, but it did put a damper on the mark's day and his own home. It worked because the mark's front door had one of those mail slots cut in it. Konely says that this stunt works wonders when the mark is not aware of what's going on until the poor drip really gets the message. Here's what Konely suggests. Hook a hose, ideally the mark's, to the outdoor faucet. Unscrew the power nozzle so you have the bare hose. Carry it to the mail slot and quietly fit the bare hose end through the slot and into the house. Got the picture? Good. Konely says you just turn on the faucet and hope the mark has slow reactions. Most tricksters would agree that it's hardly sporting to do this when the mark is away from home. "That would be like shooting puppies in a barrel," Konely snorts. "At least tip the barrel over and give them a running start, so to speak." If your mark hates cats, be sure to place dead fish in obscure and unpleasant places around his/her abode. Do this at night. If you want feline audio accompaniment, tie a large dead fish from a tree limb or pole just out of the reach of the neighborhood cats. The nearer to the mark's bedroom window, the better. The modern epoxy glues are a miracle to many and a menace to others. The latter is exemplified by the exasperation of a person who's just discovered that someone has squirted a load of strong glue into her/his door lock. (Liquid solder works too.) You know all those vents in the back and top of a television set? If you ever pour a bunch of iron filings down in there, some interesting things will happen to the mark's set the next time it is turned on. How about some party humor? If your mark doesn't know you're getting back at him yet, you might even find yourself a guest in the target home. You could start off your festivities by quieting yourself away from the crowd, locating the family freezer, and either turning the unit down greatly, pulling the plug (unless it's equipped with a safety signal unit), or switching it to defrost. A trickster by the name of Micki related how she once came bearing gifts for the mark's family freezer. She had matched the hostess's freezer wrapping paper and style perfectly. Then, nestled among the nice beef roasts, steaks, hamburgers, and chickens belonging to the mark, Micki added her own packages of frozen roadkill -- dead cats, small dogs, groundhogs, and crows. Happy eating, all you mystery-meat fans. While doing your tour of the targeted facilities don't forget to dump some fierglass or insulation dust into the mark's washing machine. It will be picked up by the clothes, ideally undergarments. Within half an hour of getting dressed, a person wearing clothing impregnated by the fiberglass or insulation dust will wish he/she weren't. It creates terrible itching that takes two or three days to disappear. The best part is that no one ever thinks to blame the rash on sabotaged clothing. Repeated doses of this stunt are enough to make a strong mark crumble. A continual supply of "product" is assured if you mix the nasty dust in with the laundry detergent. Every real kid knows what sulfur smells like when burned -- horribly rotten eggs. Once, some of my peergroup delinquents put some three pounds of it in a nasty neighbor's furnace, after somehow gaining entry to the basement. The house had to be aired out for nearly forty-eight hours. It was awesome. If you want some fireworks with your sulfur-in-the-furnace gimmick, throw in a mixture of potassium permanganate and sugar. It will flare, smoke grandly, and, with the sulfur present, stink all the more. Here is one of Leon Specre's recipe for ill humor. He hopes you dig it. Your mark (and family if there is one) is away for at least the weekend, and you know about it enough ahead that you can hire a backhoe operator. Also, rent a pickup truck and tape a cardboard sign to its door with some vague identification on it about a landscaping business. Smear the license plate with mud or borrow another plate for a short while. You should arrive at the mark's house about half an hour before the backhoe. Naturally, you used the mark's name when you engaged the backhoe and you told the operator you'd have a landscape contractor (you) there to meet him. The neighbors should think everything is in order if you act as if you know what you're doing. Don't give the backhoe operator a good look at you, and use some disguise kit if possible. The premise is that the mark wants to add a basement room somewhere on the house. You must tell the backhoe operator exactly where to excavate. In most suburban areas, underground utility lines are indicated with aboveground markers. You can pick up gas lines and water lines from the meters. Pick an area clear of utility lines and pipes and lay out some string and stakes. Do all this before your operator arrives. Tell him your client, the mark, wants that area excavated and to bill the mark directly. Further, tell him that you have to leave to pick up your foreman and crew and that you'll be back in about twenty minutes. Ideally, you'll never see the backhoe operator again. As Frank Foge points out, "My chemistry teacher always said there'd be a practical use for these high school science courses someday." She was right. Do you remember what termites look like? Good. If not, any insect book will tell you. Or visit your local Orkin man and tell him you need to obtain some termite eggs for an experiment. Or get them from a science-supply house. I bet you already know the experiment. It's called how fast can the little eggs hatch into hungry termites and devour the mark's house? There's no trick here; you just infest your mark's home with the little buggers. They'll do the rest. This last one was prompted by a frustrated renter whose landlady refused to have the cockroaches and other pests exterminated from an apartment. A serious illness to an infant child, traced directly to the landlady's refusal to follow sanitary laws, triggered the nasty "bugging" by the renter. ======= HOOKERS ======= In many cities independent business people have set up a personal service whose employees make housecalls. These paid friends come in all sexes and meet all tastes. It might be fun to invite one of these hedonistic harlots to "your" house. Use the mark's name and a neighbor's address. Try to pick the most upright, puritan neighbor you can find to receive this sexual good Samaritan -- a professional virgin or librarian; something on that order. Not all prostitutes carry the Good Housekeeping Seal; some carry venereal diseases. These are fairly common among streetwalkers, the bargain basement of hookerdom. If you or a trusted friend in law enforcement, medicine, or social service can locate one of these carnal carriers and your mark has a weakness for ladies, hire her and let her pick up your mark. Nature, as they say, will take care of the rest. I'm certain your vengeful imagination will have no trouble matching a deserving mark with a paid friend who might give him/her more than bargained for. I know a couple of people who set up a cop this way. The cop was especially hypocritical and nasty about honest working girls: He'd fully and freely sample the services before busting and totally prosecuting the servicer. He got his, so to speak.