no pants in newport

My dad grew up in a rough neighborhood in Cleveland and was quite the hooligan. He and my uncle used to steal cars and do other illegal stuff. But he ended up getting an engineering scholarship to Case Western and his freshman year in college was supposed to be on the straight and narrow.

Except that, he joined a fraternity. To give you an idea of how rough a city Cleveland was back then, he joined the honor student fraternity, where he was constantly hazed by older students, even though this fraternity is normally the refuge of geeks. This physicist, who was a junior, kept harassing my dad, who quickly got sick of his bullshit.

So, with a few other fraternity brothers, my dad developed a plot one evening to kidnap and drive this physicist to Newport, Kentucky (5 hours away from the university). Back then Newport was a shit town full of prostitutes and drug dealers. When they got the guy to Newport they were going to dump him out on the street with no pants on, leave him there, and drive back to Case. I asked my dad if he thought that might be unsafe. And my dad said "I didn't think about that. I just wondered how he would solve the problem." As if being in a shit town with no pants on was a differential equation or something.

The frat brothers threw this poor physicist in the trunk of a Buick and took off. The Buick was burning oil so the bumper was covered in residue. When they got to Newport my dad let the guy out of the trunk, and, having had a change of heart, talked him into stealing street signs instead of taking his pants and leaving him there.

My dad climbed up some water tower thing and took a sign. The rest of the guys stole street signs. Then all the frat brothers piled back in the car, with the stolen signs in the trunk, and headed back to Case. Unfortunately the physicist, fearing my dad would change his mind again and throw him in the trunk, wrote "help I'm being kidnapped" on the Buick bumper right before they left.

Around 2 in the morning my dad was pulled over for speeding. Then the cop saw the kidnap message on the back of the bumper and made everyone get out of the car. He handcuffed my dad because the physicist started yelling "He wanted to kidnap me!!!" He was a little pussy who didn't want to get in trouble. As my dad stood there in his handcuffs the cop opened the trunk and saw the signs.

In the end my dad got out of jail time by agreeing to do community service. The physicist graduated early. And no one ever messed with my dad again.