Now it’s time we go back, way back, back into time …Well not that far really.

It was my senior year of High School, it was a beautiful autumn day if I do remember so, but that was all about to change. A large group of my friends were in need of fake ID’s, so we planned on taking a trip to the Greenwich Village to purchase them. Little did we know as we boarded the train at the Croton Harmon station that we were about to be involved in the stupidest act of our lives.

Usually when you want to go about getting fake ID’s, you have to have some sort of plan, but not us, oh not us at all. We came to the City with our wallets packed with cash, and absolutely no plan of action, two major no no’s.

We headed to Grand Central Station, and once we got there, we figured we would head to the Village.

So, we finally get to the Village, and we’re looking for shops that have ID signs in the windows.

It didn’t take much time at all for the shit to hit the fan.

As we walked down the Avenue of the America’s we were approached by a man who looked and sounded exactly like Samuel L. Jackson, Kangol cap and all, outside of an ID shop. For all we know it may have been actually him.

The sight of six teenage kids from the suburbs must have made bogus Samuel L.’s mouth water like a Lion seeing a pack of Down syndrome Zebras walking by.

As we walked past Samuel L. he says, “You guys need IDs, weed, anything???” We all stopped and thought about it. My friend Mickey was the first to reply, “How much for IDs?” Samuel L. replied with an offer of 40 bucks per ID.

Again we all stopped to think about it, and agreed to follow him to his “office” which he said was in the top of Arby’s. As all the rest of the crowd followed Samuel L. and one of his henchmen into Arby’s I grabbed my friend Valenzuela and told him not to follow.

Remembering the last words of my father, who is a retired NYPD Lieutenant, before I left the house that morning, I thought it wasn’t such a good idea to follow. My father’s words were this, “If any guy approaches you in front of a phony ID shop DO NOT FOLLOW HIM, HE WILL ROB YOU!”

Feeling like we did the wise thing, we stayed behind and went to a KFC to get lunch. After seeing that the line was way too long we decided to check out Arby’s. After we purchased our food we sat down to eat. While we were eating our food, Samuel L.’s henchman approached us. This is how the conversation went.

Samuel L.’s Crony: You wit them guys up there?

Me and Valenzuela: Uhhhhh, yeah.

SL’sC: I need you guys to take out your wallets, I need to see if yall’s are cops.

M and V: What???

SL’sC: I need to check the code numbers on your bills to see if yalls are cops.

Like the complete moron pussies that we were we handed him our bills.

He said, “Okay thanks I gotta check ‘em I’ll be right back,” and stormed out. I said “Hey wait!!!” and followed him out of the Arby’s, as I did this he bolted away down the block.

Valenzuela and I looked at each other with a stupefied gaze. We couldn’t believe how badly we had been dooped, and how stupid we were for falling for it. I was robbed of 40 beans and Valenzuela was robbed for 60 beans. But ultimately we were not going to be the biggest morons of the day.

After we were robbed we walked up the stairs to find our friends sitting at a table in the vacant upstairs eating area at Arby’s. Their faces looked as if they didn’t know that they had been dooped. They told us a story that Samuel L. knocked on a door upstairs in the Arby’s, (which was most likely a janitors closet) and told them that it was his office, and made a gesture that he was listening to somebody inside the door that told him “Wait 5 minutes.”

The next thing Samuel L. does is tell my friends he needs to see all of their “Big Bills” in their wallet because he needs to use the numbers on bills to use on the ID cards. Like the morons that they were they handed Samuel L. 300 dollars in cash. 300 fucking dollars. He then said I’ll be right back and walked casually down the stairs and out of the Arby’s door.

When me and Valenzuela first went up the stairs some of our friends still believed that he was coming back. I didn’t take very long for us too convince the majority of the hooligans that they had been robbed badly, but some still hung on to the hope that Samuel L. would be back. As we walked out of Arby’s we all realized that our only possession was our round trip ticket back to Croton, so the general consensus of the group was, “well what the fuck do we do now.”

We decided to walk to the Empire State Building because we could see it in the distance and we wanted to go to the top observatory. After walking what felt like 80 blocks, we made it to the Empire State Building.

When we went in we saw a sign that said the cost of the elevator ride to the top was 9 bucks. Now our spirits were really broken. We walked outside and I bought a hot dog with the remaining dollar that I left, and then we realized it was about time to head back to Yorktown. We made it back to Grand Central but not before Mickey had outraged a homeless man by spitting into an overflowing trash can with a half eaten sandwich on top. The only thing right that happened that day is that we caught our train right before it was about to leave. In the middle of our ride back we finally broke down and laughed at the experience that we had just had, after being pissed off about it all day.

Now that I think of it, I think it was worth the 40 dollars that I was robbed of just to have the story to tell today.

Questions or comments? E-mail Bryan at itsbyrne@hotmail.com