[Jeff Higgins]

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap? I guess I have a few. All pretty harmless, I guess.

One of my buddies (and a room mate before I got married) was, like many of us, working on his four wheeler and dirt bike all of the time. No big deal - except he didn't have any tools. He used mine. No big deal either, but he just never cleaned them up and put them away when he was finished. I don't have to tell you guys, that was a big deal. I never really did get all that mad at him, but I certainly let him know that if he wanted to keep using them, he would have to do better. He never did.

So I finally started messing with him. He was working nights, I was working days, so his truck was always in the driveway in the morning. So I would put about a dollar bill sized puddle of anti-freeze under it before I left for work every morning. This went on for weeks, with him looking in vain for the leak. He finally pulled the radiator one Saturday (using my tools, of course, and I even helped) and went and got it pressure tested. Nothing. No leaks. So he bought all new hoses for the reinstallation. When he went to do that on Sunday, I was nowhere to be found and my tools were locked up.

This was in the days before cell phones, of course. He called everyone we knew looking for me. He was in a panic, since he had to get it back together so he could drive it to work that afternoon (Sunday night was his "Monday"). I was actually with the first guy he called, but of course he "hadn't seen me". He got more and more panicked with everyone he called, at least according to them in our "after action debriefing" (sitting around drinking beer together, laughing our asses off at him the next weekend).

I finally got home about an hour before he had to be at work. No time to put it back together, of course. So I let him borrow my car. He asked me to make sure I left my toolbox unlocked for him for the next day, so he could put it back together. I took that opportunity to explain what had just happened to him and why, and just what it would take for him to be allowed access to my tools (no, not that one...) in the future. He was absolutely beyond pissed off. By the next weekend, though, we were sharing a beer and laughing about it. He was super vigilant about cleaning and putting away tools after that.