Cheap Booze Shoplifter: “You’re calling the cops over four beers?”

Who out there hasn’t, while gazing upon some luxury item that is beyond one’s means – a bottle of fine perfume perhaps, or a lady-in-a-bikini bottle opener – thought, “Would that it could be mine, but alas, I don’t have the requisite funds. If only I had the guts to steal it.” Barring a stint in our teens during which we may or may not have stolen anything that wasn’t nailed down, however, most of us feel that shoplifting is wrong – even when it’s a big corporation that couldn’t possibly miss one little item – or we just don’t want to be embarrassed by being hauled into some backroom and put under the bright lights for an interrogation by mall cops, so we either go without or go into debt when it comes to the things we want.

Call it nature, nurture, or Florida, but some people are unrepentant when it comes to availing themselves of the five-finger discount. A woman in Crestview Florida walked into a Tom Thumb 81 grocery store on Sunday, went straight for the cooler, pulled out a four-fer of Anheuser-Busch’s “Natural Ice Beer” – a 5.9% beer that scored 1.02 out of 5 on ratebeer.com, though one that is unlikely to be consumed by anybody who would think to Google a beer brand – and stuffed it under her sweater.

The clerk saw her take the beer and asked her if she planned on paying for it. The woman underscored the importance of non-verbal communication by walking out of the store silently and getting into her car. The clerk followed her out and said that she would write down the woman’s license plate number and call the cops if she didn’t return the beer, to which the woman replied: “You’re calling the cops for four beers?” And to which she might have added, “And four cheap beers at that?”

The clerk did not accept the woman’s attempt to put things into perspective in this manner, and decided that she would involve the police. A check was run on the woman’s car and her most recent address found. She wasn’t there, however -- she was apparently enjoying the shoplifted suds somewhere else.

Drunk bank robbery busted minutes later

This morning, rather than remark on last night's goings on, Oscar-wise and the obviously amazing adhesive properties of the primer used to affix John Travolta's hair to his bald noggin, or the nearly comatose presenter Harrison Ford (indistinguishable from the best performances he's ever given, minus the leather vests), we decided to focus on 'Best Drunk Performance During Commission of a Federal Felony', courtesy of a Chicago bank robber. [Editor's Note: Of course, in the event any of our seat filler insiders aren't shaken down and tossed out onto Hollywood Blvd and beaten, we'll give you updates on whichever drunken celebrity does something worthy of noting here.]

In the Shark Book, we chronicled a blotto bank heist that ended inauspiciously when the 'robbin' hood' headed to the nearest bar (and we're not speaking euphemistically here as it was two blocks over) and tried to buy rounds with his security ink-stained loot.

A Windy City brigand, following in that guy's shuffling foot-steps, made the unorthodox move of showing his identification prior to tipping off the teller that he was half in the bag, while instructing them to fill it.

“I’m drunk, lower the money, give me $2,000 right now in one hundred dollar bills. Right now, I don’t want to hurt anyone!” he drawled, reaching over and attempting to grab loot from the drawer.

A witness directed Chicago's finest to a restaurant one and a half blocks from the bank, where they found a man who fit the description of the robber just 15 minutes after the robbery.

Apparently, in the interceding 14 minutes, he had outstanding debts to pay as a bank audit reported $213 missing, and $18 was found on the suspect at the time of his arrest.

Drunk teen and his massive bar tab! He's got it 'made in Japan'

Getting a fake ID from that guy who will, once you've drunk yourself stupid in various lenient bars, supply you with a bogus highschool diploma, is a common rite of passage for many young keeners.

More often than not these sorts of identification cards could not pass muster anywhere other than the All-blind and Half-smart Society's annual barbecue and booze-up, but the teens, long having exhausted the liquor cabinet of mom's secret stash of Baby Duck (for all our foreign readers, the worst plonk in the Great White North, unfit to scour sink basins in the southwestern part of France), go for it anyhow.

In Japan recently, a 16-year-old raised the bar (and nearly bankrupted one) for under-aged drunken antics the world over when he sauntered into a Tokyo hostess club in the guise of a rich young playboy and began whooping it up in grand style.

The teen, who the manager later said ordered drinks and spoke with hostesses as a man experienced in such matters would, and was presumably not asked for identification because of that (the minimum drinking age in Japan is 20, and rumoured to be lower if you're not a fussy drinker), sat down with the hostesses and over the course of the evening managed to order an astonishing 60 glasses of whiskey, beer and cocktails, along with two bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne.

A lover of the high life, the youngster had apparently not read the chapter in the con-man's handbook that says when you are in the midst of a deception, it is best to blend in with the crowd and not draw attention to yourself. It's unlikely that he could have made himself more conspicious given his heavy bar tab --- 370,000 yen (US$3,490) by night's end (!) -- and the fact that he repeatedly picked up the microphone to serenade the various karaoke lovelies with some jukebox faves.

Alas, all good things must come to an end (and how much better could they get than a night of high-end booze-up on the arm in some den of ill repute?) and end they did when the teen was presented with the bill. Rather than creating a distraction by, say, requesting some Kenny Chesney and then making a break for it, the teen stuck around until the bill arrived and once it did he announced that he had no money.

Staff kept him there until police arrived, and we, find it a bit disconcerting that the coolest person we can think of at this moment is a 16-year-old kid.(Full story here)

The Grinch that stole Guinness

This, as you may have guessed, is an important time of year for us Shark Guys, as we enter the Christmas drinking season and prepare ourselves for yet more tales of drunken Santas, holiday office party chicanery (For our Holiday Office Party Tips click here), and the related reasons why it is best not to include mistletoe at a party where lower-level managers are known for their "Russian hands and Roman fingers" after too many dips into the spiked punch. (For a fuller treatment on this very theme we recommend that you check out the “Festive Cheers: Hooch on the Holidays” chapter of our “The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death: and other true tales of drunken debauchery").

What makes the holidays memorable – aside from family tensions reaching the breaking point and the prospect of imminent financial ruin in the New Year – is, of course, booze, and brewers around the world have smiles on their faces at this time of year that have little to do with stirring religious convictions or sentimental remembrances of gassy mall Santas passing out candy canes and charging 10 bucks a pop for photos. The steady flow of brewer’s booze into pubs is one of those systems that we take for granted, but it is crucial to properly enjoying the holidays and meeting its stressors with rosy cheeks and a good disposition.

Recently, a thief in Ireland stole a record haul of booze from the Guinness brewery, thus throwing this delicate and vital link between brewer and boozehound into jeopardy. According to The Irish Times, the thief drove a truck into the Guinness Brewery, hitched it up to a trailer with 450 kegs of beer in tow, and drove off. In addition to 180 kegs of the black gold, the thief also made off with 180 kegs of Budweiser, and 90 kegs of Carlsberg.

It may be argued that the thief did the drinkers of Dublin a favor by limiting the flow of Budweiser into the city, but in the case of the black gold or “a sandwich in a glass”, as it has been known to The Shark Guys during particularly festive times, the theft was just a cruel, Grinch-like blow to the city.

The thief remains at large, and no doubt living large with all that ill-gotten hooch – 40,500 pints or 64,000 euros worth (the math here was easy as we too measure our money out this way) – at hand.

Drinking and driving in the deathmobile

Unless you’re a signatory to some government/Nasa Area 51 non-disclosure pact, or otherwise other-stratosphere rich, it’s unlikely that your desire to have your ashes fired off into space along with the charred remains of your lifetime accumulation of Star Wars memorabilia will be accommodated. As such, your final ride on this earth, or to put it another way, God’s checkered flag coming down on the victory lap of your life, will be in a hearse – and hopefully not the late model, back-firing jalopy pictured here. [Editor’s Note: This would of course precede, depending on your particular religious beliefs, you being shot up to heaven via some kind of seraphic service elevator.]

Hearses were originally horse-drawn and lest you think the word itself was derived from a slurred, drunken elocution of "horse"—unfortunately, it wasn’t. (The origin of "hearse" isn’t that compelling and for a dreary explanation click here, or feel free to circulate our more interesting derivation). What's certain though, is stopping every hundreds yards or so for an equine plop must’ve really detracted from the solemnity of the proceedings, and resulted in the wiping of many an extra tear and the covering of many a nose.

The development of the internal combustion engine (the trend of caskets being pulled by a convoy of underpaid cyclists having been short-lived) put an end to the funereal use of beasts of burden, giving rise to consumers having a whole range of opulent choices like Rolls Royce, Jaguars or Mercedes, so that their final commute to that big, luxury showroom in the sky is a smooth one. For the easy-riding set, there’s even a motorcycle-style hearse with a sidecar—not recommended for navigating winding, hilly terrain (or for those with any sense of dignity and decorum).

In New Zealand, a beer-guzzling mourner took a hearse out for a mid-funeral "joy ride", though it’s hard to grasp how much joy could have been derived from the stunt given both what we would assume to be the solemnity of the day and the fact that the weighty conveyance couldn’t even outrun a postal vehicle, except on a 30-degree slope with a stomach-stapling casualty riding in the rear.

Indeed, while the authors of The Shark Book covered the aftermath of the customary booze-up that is part of many earthly farewells in a chapter of the book entitled "Last Call and Last Rites: Funereal Debauchery", none of those mashed mourners went so far as to steal a hearse (though one drunk non-mourner did plow through a funeral procession, which, in one of the book's darker ironies, was being held for a person killed by a drunk driver).

With numerous police officers on hand, eating up time and a half as they always are on such occasions, and lead-foot funeral directors in hot pursuit, the hearse thief, who’d been drinking all day, didn’t get far. Upon his capture, the one that didn’t get away told authorities he was "going fishing", but that first he wanted to "check out the sea conditions”. And yes, just in case you were wondering, a delivery was not waiting in the back of the commandeered death wagon. [Full story here]

The Shark Guys