David the Con Man--Potatos and Mercedes

David the Con Man--Turning Potatoes Into Mercedes

This lesson is about the need to be able to improvise. That’s the one thing TV most discourages, teaching the audience how to improvise. You? You need to improvise even in your sleep. Dreamtime is not down time for a scammer. You must always have your guard up. Sleep time is the perfect time to practice. Scamming is about bringing potential reality into actual existence. Scamming is about molding reality into the shape that best suits your needs. It’s about knowing that if you don’t do the molding first, someone else will, and then you’re the one scammed. So, pull out that potato peeler, run it close to the edge of reality’s peel, and cut away:


Dear Disciple,
The money is flowing in from the “wind tunnel” scam thick as a herd of buttered trout jerking through a vacuum cleaner hose. I won’t be starving this week! But, whoa, I got to be mindful of being careless! Easy money can make you fat and lazy. These big time scams are best for raking in the big bucks. But, they’re impersonal; you aren’t looking the sucker in the eye and shaking his hand. It’s the one-on-one scams that keep you sharp. So, after every successful big scam I run a small one, just to keep my edge.
I decided to use a barter scam. These can take a while to pull off; you have to keep your focus. That’s good training. Where should I go hunting for my victim? I got out a map of the East Coast. I laid it on the kitchen table, and put a bottle of beer 2 feet from the map. I pushed the bottle over and watched. The beer sloshed toward the map. Wherever the biggest puddle formed, that’s where I’d head. A big puddle settled between 2 folds in my old wrinkled map. I pushed aside the beer and read—Boston.
Early next morning I packed one small bag, made my way to the mainland, then flew down. It had been a long time since I’d been to Boston. For one day I scouted the town and made phone calls. That night I stayed in a run down motel. I didn’t want luxury distracting me.
In the morning I put on some old clothes, and went out to rent a beat up truck. Next I headed for a produce wholesale place, picked up around half a truckload of bagged potatoes and onions. Not far from there I bought me a huge salmon. The food would be my bait. Every scam needs bait.
Now it was time to get to work. It was real cold that day, and I was glad. The cold could be worked in my favor. I’d found an ideal intersection, one with stop signs instead of lights. The cars would have to stop; they couldn’t just zoom past me. There was a big parking lot on one corner. That was a necessity. I wanted lots of space for my suckers to park, get their cars well off the road. When the thought jerks through their head about pulling in to buy, I didn’t want them fretting about their car. Or rather, when he wants to park his car. Today I’m not scamming the general public. I’m looking for that one special loser.
What am I looking to rip off? Got to admit I don’t have a clue. When I see it I’ll know.
Actually, today is when I pay the public back a bit--.10 a pound for potatoes and onions. I leaned my spray painted signs against the truck so the passersby got a good gander.
Now for the waiting. It’s not so much like waiting for a fish to bite. It’s more like sitting in a blind waiting for the ducks to fly over. You do the prep work. Then you wait for fate or luck to take notice of you and figure a response to your actions.
I’d left room for a walk-way to the back of the truck. There was room for 2 beat up old couch cushions and a camp stove. It’s important to use cushions, not chairs. Get the guy low to the floor in the back of an old truck with you. Put a steaming pot of potatoes and onions in between you and him. That builds trust. A false sense of trust for him; the real thing for me.
I made a few sales; well I guess in thinking about it, it had been a fairly steady morning. As I chatted up about the world’s goings on and comings forth I looked hard in to their eyes. Hunger. That’s what I had to see. Hunger that the sucker thinks comes from not having eaten longer than he’d like. But that stomach hunger was just aggravating a big deeper down hunger. Put the stomach hunger together with the deeper hunger, and you’ve got a guy who could wake up the next morning wishing he’d been more cautious the day before.
Luck’s reaction to my trolling brought me the sucker right at the end of a run on onions. As I bagged the onions for the lady who had been at the lines end the Mercedes pulled in. It was one of those expensive silver painted numbers. Even before he got out of the car I realized he was my man. This guy didn’t need to save a few bucks on food. He was looking for another kind of bargain.
He walked up looking colder than he should, considering he’d just left the car.
“What have you got?”
“Just onions and potatoes, just the basics.”
“They any good?”
“I got some cooking in the back. Take a smell for your self.”

He climbed up my homemade stairs and walked right back. Like a rat walking into a one-way maze heading for the cheese.
“I’ll close the door a bit, keep out the wind.”
I closed the door almost shut. Close enough to being shut that passersby might think I was closed. But not slammed shut. I wanted to separate my sucker from the herd, not spook him.
“Smells good”, he mumbled, looking at the pot instead of me. That was okay.
“Can’t go wrong with potatoes and onions. Hard to screw up that.”
I sat on a cushion. As Luck had it he sat on the other one.
“You got a simple operation here. Hard for the tax man to keep up with you.”
So that’s what’s eating him: taxes. I can go there. Tell him what he needs to hear. And keep an ear reserved for figuring out what I’m taking from him.
“I wouldn’t know about that. I leave him alone, he leaves me alone. Neither of us has heard from the other in a long time.”
“They know where I live. They know every one of my phone numbers.”
“Oo, phones are a big mistake, at least having one just to your self.”
“You don’t have a phone?”
“Not for years. Having your own phone’s like a deer strapping a bell around his neck. He’s just begging for the hunters to shoot him.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Let me guess; you’ve got a TV, too, don’t you.”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“Big mistake. That’s how the tax man gets you. TV tells you what to buy. You buy it, then you got to pay taxes on it.”
“That does smell good.”

Good, the food’s working, distracting him, making him think about short term instincts instead long term survival.
“Here dish up a bowl. Like I say, no phone, and they don’t know where you live. No TV, and they can’t flush you out.”
“Man, you got it figured out. I wish I had the guts to give up my luxury and live simple like you.”
“Oh, you got that wrong. I live plenty high on as many hogs as I want. I don’t pay taxes, remember.”
“Out of this place? You don’t look rich.”
“You’re right, I don’t look it, at least around here. I save my spending for when I’m on vacation. And I take trips a lot. It’s easier to hide from the taxman when you’re moving. A moving target is harder to hit than a sitting one.”
“Man, you got it figured out. How did you come up with this plan?”
“When you’re not being bothered by the phone and TV you’ve got time to think. It just comes to you.”
“I wish I had your guts.”
“All you got to do is just step out of the rat race. I’d be willing to help.”
“Really? That’s something to think about. I’d have to do a lot of planning ahead.”
“That’s not the way to show me you’ve got the stuff. You know those circus lion and tiger trainers?”
“Yeah.”
“The circus hires them by placing ads in the paper. What the ad doesn’t tell you is what you have to do for the audition.”
“And what’s that.”
“You have to step in to a cage full of wild cats, with nothing but your bare hands. No gun, no whip, no training, nothing, right then and there, with no second chance, right then and there, go in to the cage.”
“No way!”
“The one thing a successful cat trainer’s got to have is confidence. The circus handlers can’t teach you that, you bring that with you to the job.”
“Man, they’ve got guts.”
“It’s just being smart on the circus’ part. Now, how that applies to you and me? You want to be like me, living wild and free of the tax man?”
“You bet!”
“Then, right now, right here, you’ve got to make the commitment. No going home for a change of clothes. No telling you’re friends, no closing out your stock portfolio and bank account. You got to give it all up, never look back.”
“Pretty soon the tax men are going to take it all anyway. I can’t even go get some clothes?”
“You’ve got to be untraceable. When you left the house today you didn’t do anything out the usual. If you go back now, cart suitcases to the car, that’s going to draw attention. When the taxmen come asking for you, the neighbors are going to remember. You can’t give those tax buzzards the slightest inch, or they’ll find you.”
“Man. This is a big jump!”
“There’s a salmon in the cooler. Cook it tonight. Eating wild game purges TV and phone influences from your body. Eat the whole fish tonight. You’ll be a new man, a real man.”
“It’s all this simple?”
“Trust me.”
“You caught me at the right time. What have I got to loose. All right, I’m in. What now?”
That’s it; I know what I want from this sucker.

“You’re not going to regret this. It’s simple. I give you this truck and produce; you give me your car. I’ll give you the address for buying this stuff and what cash I’ve got. Then I drive away, and you’re on your own.”
“My car?”
“You can be traced through the car. I know how to get rid of it.”
“How am I going to figure out how to live?”
“Go a few days without a phone and TV, and it will all start coming naturally to you.”
He put his bowl on the floorboards, and stood up. Then he dug out his keys.
“Here, the cars yours.”
I took the keys, grabbed his hand and gave it a good double-handed shake. I gave him about $300 bucks.
“I feel like this is all going to work out,” he said.
I gave him the keys to the truck.
“Of course it will. You got the whole rest of the day to sell. Remember, don’t ever park where they make you pay rent.”
I had the keys loose in my hand. I didn’t pocket them. That might be too much, too final, and he’d back out. Fortunately, as I rolled the door back up 3 women walked to the truck’s rear, with that ‘looking to buy’ gleam in their eyes. He, I hadn’t gotten his name on purpose, went right to work.
I drove off slowly, didn’t want to rattle him. This had been a very good scam. I had probably helped that guy out of a big jam, and his life would be better. And I had pulled off a scam, looking the sucker right in the eye. A brand new Mercedes in exchange for all I’d spent put me way ahead. I know some Russians in Pennsylvania who are always looking to buy a Mercedes. I’m going to eat out big at a fancy joint tonight!
Yours in the faith,
David