October 2021
John Smith wanted to be famous. Rich and famous would be better, but, as they say, you cannot have it all. John was working as an accountant for Ernst & Young, a large consulting firm, and his job was anything but glamorous. In fact, it was outright boring.
“Why are you so obsessed with becoming famous?” asked his wife Mary. “You are young, successful in your job, making good money, so what more do you want?”
“I want to be somebody people recognize. Somebody well known. Being an accountant isn’t it.”
“Being a young accountant in a large company gives you plenty of opportunity to advance. You can even become CEO if you work hard,” replied Mary.
“That takes a long time. I want to be famous now.”
Mary was worried about John’s ambition. He might do something stupid, cause a scandal and endanger their future. And that was exactly what John had in mind. Not to endanger their future, but to cause a scandal. He knew that he couldn’t become famous as an entertainer or sportsman, and he had no talent for the arts. For him, scandal was the only way to glory. There were many scandals leading to fame, like for example that of Monica Lewinsky. She was nobody until she had sex with Bill Clinton. John couldn’t hope to create a scandal of similar proportions, his chance of having sex with the president’s wife was slim. He needed a different kind of scandal. Something unbelievable and outrageous. Martians, UFOs, conspiracy theories, all that has already been used to its full potential. He knew that nowadays there are popular ridiculous stories about spies, so how about to invent a secret drop box, create a video, and put it on the internet? It might work.
It worked better than John could ever imagine. Following his plan, he found a suitable hole in the wall of the old school building, put a memory stick there, took few photos, videotaped a back of a passing man, removed the memory stick and took a photo of the empty hole. Then he made a video and uploaded it to YouTube.
The response was prompt and entirely unexpected. Two days later, while walking to his car to go to work, two men grabbed him, put a hood over his head, pushed him into a waiting van and drove away. After a while they stopped and led him downstairs to a basement.
“You can take off the hood,” a man’s voice told him. When John could see again, he was looking at a creature with a face mask and dark sunglasses.
“Call your work and tell them you are sick!” ordered the creature. After the call John asked why they kidnapped him.
“I am the one asking questions,” barked the mask. “For whom do you work?”
“For Ernst & Young, I am accountant there.”
“I know that, but besides Ernst & Young?”
“I don’t work for anybody else.”
“So how did you know about the drop box?”
“I didn’t know about it, I just invented it.”
“You invented it? Why?”
“To amuse myself. Accounting is boring.”
“It is hard to believe. That would be too much of a coincidence.”
“Do you think I am a spy? I don’t know any secrets. I would be useless to any spy agency.”
As the masked man looked at John, he had to admit that John didn’t look like a spy.
“You said that you wanted to amuse yourself. How would inventing a drop box amuse you?”
“I wanted to create a scandal and then laugh at those who took it seriously.”
“You certainly succeeded in creating a scandal, more than you could ever imagine. Now listen to me carefully. You never ever mention to anybody what happened today. Not to your wife or to your parents, to nobody. If you do, there will be consequences. For you and for your wife.” After that warning somebody put again a hood on John’s head, pushed him into the van and drove him back to his car.
Unfortunately, this was not the end of the story. Few days later, in the evening, there was a ring at John’s door. When he opened, there was a man flashing his CIA badge.
“Mr. John Smith, I presume?” he said.
“Yes, what can I do for you?”
“You have to come with me, it wouldn’t take long.”
This time nobody put a hood on John’s head. The man brought him to an office where an older guy, who looked like a boss, was sitting behind the desk.
“So, how was your chat with the masked man?” asked the boss.
John was terrified, he remembered well the warning.
“The meeting with a masked man never happened!” he screamed.
“I know, I know, he gave you a warning. What I want to know is how did you find out about our secret drop box?”
“I didn’t find out, I just invented it for my personal amusement. I wish I had never done it.”
“So do I. With your personal amusement you ruined the trap we were so carefully setting. Now all the bad guys are gone.”
“Does that mean that I don’t have to worry about them anymore?”
“Yes, that is right. Because of you, they all have fled.”
John thought that such an outcome of his attempted scandal wasn’t all that bad.