Don’t know where I got the idea to have two losers try to rip off an information stand, but I still like it, and think it still stands within the realm of reason. If you disagree, the fault is mine for at this point failing to establish Quitoclam to be a reasonably safe, reasonably quiet suburb of Vancouver, in Canada, in the 1980s: kind of dull. And for two young (if not particularly bright) would-be crooks, its little tourism outpost is a bland apple, just in reach and ripe for the picking.
No, the real-world inspiration for the tourism-sponsored information caboose was never robbed, or at least not on my brother’s watch. Instead, when Dave and I talked recently about the caboose, he reminded me of one outstanding prank that DID occur: one summer day, apparently me and a couple of my friends stopped by (let’s call it) “Caboose A”, to see if Dave was there, and presumably hang out and shoot the shit. We were out of luck; Dave was at “Caboose B”. So my friends and I decided we’d cross town and go visit my brother at the right location. But first, we had the staff at Caboose A call my brother, “warn” the other station that managers had just stopped by to pull a surprise inspection, and gave them a bit of a hard time about protocol… then say “they’re on their way over to you right now!” Of course, that’s when my friends and I showed up at Caboose B, started rearranging the furniture, the pamphlets, and (this sounds correct) even locked Dave outside the caboose at one point.
Ah… to be sixteen and idle. Good times. And, uh, sorry Dave. All for a laugh, right?
If the (unnamed) young woman is based looooooosely on an old sort-of girlfriend of mine, then her cohort Lee is based loosely on a twenty-year-old me. Visually, at least; I had better summer jobs, though (sadly) no better haircut.
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