You're probably asking yourself: who in their right mind would try to pass a counterfeit bill like this. One very dumb criminal . Or a rather imaginative one. Seeing this led me to wonder briefly what kind of bill I would design if I were on acid and trying to pass off a million dollar bill. . .
But back to the topic for today. I didn't just make this up. . . some guy DID try to pass of this bill as real. Just goes to show that all those self-esteem programs out there are working. . . to totally divorce some part of the population from reality. Think for a moment: if you read this in a book wouldn't it just stop you cold? And if you tried to put it in a book you're writing (Yeah, I know that's a stretch) would you ever expect to get it past an editor?Well, apparently REALITY doesn't have an editor.
Weirder than weird stuff happens all the time. The guy who stole a car and crashed it left a cell phone with several photos of himself on it in the seat. Proving once and for all that narcissism is totally unrelated to IQ. And what about the bank robber who wrote his "give me the money" note on the back of his own personalized deposit slip? Or the guy who led police on a 90 mph car chase was caught when he stopped at Taco Bell for a burrito. And lest I give the impression that guys are alone in the dumb olympics, I submit this photo in evidence:
Not to pick on blondes, or anything. ahem.
Here's some more stuff we'd never get by with in a book: weird history.
*In 1962, the schools in Tanganyika had to be closed because of an outbreak of contagious laughter that lasted for six months!
*In 1980, workers in a Las Vegas hospital were suspended because they use to bet on when patients would die.
*Women used to use arsenic in face powder to give their skin a healthy shade of "pale."
*A skydiver fell 6000 feet without a parachute and lived to tell the tale.
*A disgraced former governor of Illinois (you know who you are) developed and is marketing a line of hair products! (Brand name "Blago")
*Two national park workers were fired after peeing in Old Faithful. (Recently!)
*1918 Attempting to dodge German gunfire, a Canadian pilot named Makepiece went into a sharp nose dive. In the process his passenger, Capt. J. H. Sedley, fell out of the plane. When Makepiece leveled off several hundred feet below, the free-falling Sedley miraculously landed on the tail of the airplane, apparently drawn there by the downdraft of the plummeting aircraft. Sedley clung to the tail, then clambered into his seat, unharmed. Ultimately the plane landed safely behind Allied lines. True story!
*In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.
*In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12. !!!!!
*The condom was invented in the early 1500's, and was originally made of linen. (Which later gave rise to the first nickname: French Letters.) (So much classier than the now venerable "rubbers.")
So with all that background. . . would you believe that there was a British Prince of Wales who only dallied with married women? And in fact sometimes was known to "arrange" a marriage for a single lady so he could bed her? Well, there was one. . . "Bertie," Queen Victoria's son and heir. It was a quirk that just begged for a story. And I gave it one in my upcoming book, Make Me Yours. But of course. . . the prince isn't the hero and the gal who has to marry so the prince can bed her isn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of being a royal plaything.
That's what I love about this job. . . you get to learn all kinds of stuff that "stranger than fiction" and then try to make it more realistic so they'll let you put it in a book!
History is not for wimps!
What about you? Got any favorite "stranger than fiction" or "believe it or not" stories? Got any examples of something an editor wouldn't let you put in a book. . . or something you read in a book, but didn't believe?
