There's One Born Every Minute

Latigo Flint saw a depressing sight today, a lowdown con man making a killing selling what he claimed were maps pinpointing the exact location of The Lost Razor Scooter Mine of Bakersfield to the foolish urbanites at the table area outside the local sandwich shop.

His pitch was all too familiar to one as steeped in western lore as Latigo Flint. The huckster would stumble around the corner, his clothes in tatters, clutching the broken lower half of a Razor Scooter.

"I've found it. By God I've finally found it - riches untold!" The people stare in mid-chew, their confusion slowly turning to unbridled greed as he went on to explain that two years ago the Razor Company had to recall every single scooter, even the cheap knockoffs that 7/11 had been selling.

"Hey yeah!" Some buffoon would holler. "I haven't seen one of those in months." The reason for the recall, the sneaky fraud would now offhandedly mention, had something to do with a defect in the "platinum lined brake cables".

It would sometimes take a minute but someone would always catch it - "WAIT A MINUTE... DID YOU JUST SAY PLATINUM LINED BRAKE CABLES???!!!"

"SHHHHHHH!!! Not so loud." Then the snake would draw the now sizeable crowd close to him, as he crouched, quarterback style at their feet. He'd need two thousand dollars to rent a fleet of dump trucks. He'd rent 'em himself but he'd spent every last dime he had on the search. Every hundred dollars (one unit) chipped in toward the rental would equal ten thousand pounds of Razor Scooter brake cabling - approximate platinum value once it's stripped: $150,000.00.

They couldn't throw money at him fast enough. Fights nearly broke out over how many units each would purchase. Once the two grand was raised he'd remove maps from a large Kinko's envelope and pass them around.

"Meet me there tonight. It's going to be very hard work loading all the Razor Scooter brake cable into the trucks but don't bring anyone to help unless they absolutely can be trusted.... And make sure no one follows you."

They all agreed and assured him they wouldn't let him down. Then with hearty handshakes all around he would slip away. Everyone would then toss their half-eaten sandwiches and scatter, shooting greedy, suspicious glances at anything that moved, and the whole sorry affair would start all over ten minutes later when the food court had filled with new suckers.