Age: 21
Postmark: PA
This week...let's talk about a LOOPHOLE that you've discovered or invented...a way you've subverted "the rules." As always, you don't have to make any great point, just describe it as vividly as you can. Creativity welcomed.
Monday, January 23, 2012
How To Get Out of a Parking Ticket
Age: 21
Postmark: PA
This week...let's talk about a LOOPHOLE that you've discovered or invented...a way you've subverted "the rules." As always, you don't have to make any great point, just describe it as vividly as you can. Creativity welcomed.
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Everyone loves CFA (Chick-fil-A). If you don’t, you probably used to before eating it three times a day at Northside last term. How could anyone not be a fan for at least some portion of their life? They have bangin’ chicken sandwiches and waffle fries. This is why I was so surprised to find out the number of promotions and free giveaways they have at their various locations. I always that thought only lousy restaurants gave away free food. I guess that they expect consumers to fall into the trap of ordering regular food along with the free food. From the second I discovered these promotions roughly a year ago, I was determined to not fall into this trap, to snag as much free stuff as possible.
ReplyDeleteI started my quest after my friend informed me that many locations have a text message club. There is a unique number that you can subscribe yourself to by sending in a text message. The number is located inside at each store (each store being different). Then, perhaps twice a week, the number will send promotional offers to your cell phone. The offers include buy one get one free waffle fries, free sundae with purchase of a meal, or the best texts- free CFA chicken sandwich, nuggets, strips, or milkshake, no strings attached. I was, and currently am, subscribed to three locations. Last year, whenever we received these texts, we made sure to hit the restaurant for lunch or dinner. The offers required you to go at a specific time- for instance, between 2 and 6pm on a certain day. They also explicitly state that the offer is good only once per person.
Being high school students, it’s needless to say they were going to try to exploit these offers whenever possible. The restaurant is giving away free food, so why not try to take as much as possible? Most of the extra food that I got was done by myself though. It is certainly less conspicuous without a large group. My first experience in taking advantage of CFA was grabbing two free milkshakes on a crowded day. It wasn’t a text promotion either (no I didn’t steal them, it was free milkshake day), so I didn’t have to show them my phone or stick around very long. Child’s play. My next loophole discovery required a little extra effort. I could forward the text to friends so that even if they weren’t subscribed, they all could get free stuff. Sometimes they would check the number that it was from, however. This could be avoided by renaming my contact to “CFA” in their phone. I did this a number of times with various people, and won many additional free sandwiches.
It soon became a goal to obtain as much free food as possible during each trip, even if I wasn’t hungry. It was a sort of a game. Of course, I tried just going up to the counter multiple times. But the workers always remember your face, and they can’t knowingly give out multiple free items for fear of being fired. So I thought about it. If I couldn’t get the same workers to give me multiple items, I’d need to wait for a new shift. After a little bit of field research, I discovered that the shift changes at 5pm. It also turns out that every offer encompasses that shift change. Bingo.
In case you were considering putting these strategies into practice, I feel that I should let in you on another set of loopholes, which only apply to full-on CFA restaurants (not a CFA express). When there are four or more clerks, it is easy to show the text message to the two workers on opposite sides of the counter without detection. It also helps when the restaurant is busy, of course. The final secret is to use the drive through window. There are different workers usually, and it’s nearly impossible that they would recognize you. Two of my friends and I were able to get a full seven sandwiches in a few minutes one afternoon- all for free.
I’d like to think that I discovered loopholes, but these “loopholes” are more likely just the corporation not giving a shit. In fact, I find it a little strange that the workers go as far as checking what number the text on your phone is from.
One of my favorite loopholes was when I was quite a bit younger and had just started playing soccer. I was on my best friend’s team, who was coached by his father. At first I really liked getting to play on the team because I got to hang out with my best friend, Stephen. But as time went on I got really tired of having practice every Tuesday and Thursday. I did not have an issue with the games on the weekends though I always liked them. I think the practices got really old because we always did the same thing; there was not much variety to it at all.
ReplyDeleteAfter a few seasons of going to every single practice, I started thinking of ways to get out of going to the practices because it had got to the point that I could not take it anymore. At first it seemed as though I could not find a way out of them. I mean I never really had any legitimate reason because at that age there was not much else I did until the evenings. It was not until 7th or 8th grade that I had a reason to get out of practice. This was because during both of those years I was in higher level classes, sort of like honors classes in high school. Along with those higher level classes came a ton of homework. I would even go to say that I had a lot more homework in middle school than I even did in the first two years of high school.
I had still been going to every single practice even with all this extra homework for about a month, until I had an epiphany. I had been looking for a loophole for getting out of soccer practice; well I had just found one. I had been killing myself trying to do all of my homework and practice, and my parents noticed this. I then asked if I could stop going to practice at least one day a week so I could do homework because I thought I would get better grades. They did not know that I was doing just fine in my classes while still going to practice. So for the rest of the time I played on that team I found a loophole to not go to practice.
In one of my classes last quarter, CS121, there were online quizzes every week. Each of these quizzes had a button called “How Did I do” so that the student can check their answers and correct them before they submit the quiz. This was a very useful tool for students because it allowed the student to get full credit for the assignment. This quarter I am taking the next sequence for the class CS122. The first day of class the classes were told that the “How Did I Do” function was now turned off and that students only had three attempts to take the test and get the best score possible. The thought of this scared a lot of the students including myself. We knew that the class would be significantly harder this quarter and the fact that we only had three attempts to get a good score made it even harder than necessary. A few of my friends and I decided to work on the quiz together and pool our knowledge and abilities. After taking the quiz once we discovered that the quiz gives you the answers to everything that was incorrect and that the questions do not change from attempt to attempt. Now that we discovered this we were able to just put the correct answers into the questions that were incorrect and get full credit for the assignment. This was a big loophole in the system, but it has helped a lot of people to get good grades in the class this quarter.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I thought about when I read "loophole" was something that is very similar to the short story the person shared on the hand. About three or four years ago, after Christmas, I received a present from a store, Brookstone. When I ripped the wrapping paper off the gift, I did like my gift, but I had something similar to it; therefore, I really did not see the need to keep it, which was why my mom and I decided to return it.
ReplyDeleteMy mom said that when she went to buy the gift, the employees were really helpful and eager to assist her in finding exactly what she wanted. They gave her information on all of the products and they provided her with a lot of information on the return policy. Things were different when she went back to return my gift, though.
My mom entered the store the day after Christmas with the Brookstone bag filled with my ex gift and as soon as she walked in, she saw a long line that started from the cash register to the middle of the store. She waited in line for what seemed to be hours. When she finally got to the front of the line, she smiled and was eager to return the gift and get her money back. The employee looked at her and asked her how he could help her. She said that she needed to return the gift because I had something similar at home and she took out her receipt. He and another employee started saying they could not do that transaction at that time. My mom asked why and what seemed to be a conversation turned into a small argument.
They would not give my mom her money back, even when she brought the receipt and the product with the tag. Their final excuse was that they did not have any cash at that moment to give to her in exchange for the product. My mom was tired of their excuses and began to get a little mad, so she said, "Let me speak to your manager now." They looked a little nervous, so my mom repeated what she said and before I knew it, the employee did the transaction and my mom got her money back.
In conclusion, as my mom says, "calling a higher authority puts people into place". You would think that getting what you are entitled to would not be difficult if you present the proper things needed; however, sometimes things do not work out. That is when you need to work things out in a different form to get your way. In my story, standing up for what I wanted, presenting an argument, and, I guess, threatening the employees or making sure they knew my mom was not going to back down, was needed to get around the small predicament they made. They did not want to give the money back they said we could get back if we presented the receipt and tag, so my mom had to get around that obstacle and find a simple solution... which she did and probably continues to do so.
When I was in the 6th grade, I figured I was old enough to hang out with my friends after school and on weekends without parental supervision. I went to a Catholic private school that would eventually last from 1st to 8th grade, so naturally, my parents disagreed, thinking that I was too sheltered in my small school environment to understand the dangers of the outside world. Obviously, I didn’t think the same.
ReplyDeleteI was the younger of two, and the only girl. My parents treated me very leniently, and I knew that if I kept pushing the issue, I would get my way. So even though I didn’t need one because my school was so close to my home, and on reflection, probably too young to even be using one, I was certain that getting a cell phone would be the solution.
So I thought of reasons that would absolutely convince my parents to get me one. I thought that I would be able to persuade them I should have a cell phone because I had piano lessons, swim lessons, and attended church among other extracurricular activities and it would be convenient to be able to contact them whenever necessary. But this appeared to be the one thing that my parents didn’t think I should have when I was still so young.
Of course, knowing my parents so well, I knew the one reason that they wouldn’t be able to refuse me for. I went on my laptop and searched up crazy news articles on how girls get kidnapped and go missing and they were all alone when it happened. I also told them that they knew I was clumsy and in my own world all the time that I would get lost often and it would just be easier and safer if I had a cell phone. After that, my parents could hardly refuse me, right?
I've never felt 'right' finding a loophole. The rules are there for a
ReplyDeletereason, and even if the reason is that 'New York State needs more
money from speeding taxpayers,' it exists and should be followed. I
guess for that reason I'll never be a revolutionary or a bold
adventurer.
Even so, I've 'cheated' once or twice before -- before turning myself
in, of course. For, although the rules seem terribly strict in the
real, physical world, it never seemed like such a big deal in the
virtual. Yeah, I was one of ‘those’ kids: a reclusive little twerp who
spent her days on the computer, furiously typing away and memorizing
bits of code. I learned HTML and CSS, and a smidgeon of the more
complicated languages over a span of three years. I’ve forgotten them
all by now, but then… Then I was a whiz, especially for a child of
just thirteen short years.
My new glasses sat heavily upon my nose; they were unfamiliar things
that rendered the world in brilliant sharpness, but the trade-off was
itchiness and discomfort. The spots where they rested upon my ears
were red, and when I rested my cheek in my palm, they got in the way.
Even so, I didn’t take them off. Now I could sit a full two feet away
from the screen rather than the two inches I was accustomed to. My
mother always said, ‘you’re going to ruin you back if you slouch over
like that!’ but I never cared; now that I had glasses, her worries
could be alleviated (and better yet, her nagging would cease).
My fingers ached and my eyes were strained, but I kept typing,
clicking, copying, pasting. It was a long and involved process. I’d
check the source code, chat the site’s owner up a bit, then switch the
window to the Notepad file I’d bought up just for the occasion. The
site owner, Laska, was a friend of mine, and a relative newbie to the
coding world. She had put her site into beta, and asked me to join and
test it. I did. But for some reason, I didn’t want to be a ‘good’ beta
tester. I just wanted to exploit her coding – without telling her – so
that when the site was up for realsies, I would have the advantage. I
also wanted to prove myself better than her… because she was eighteen!
Practically a dinosaur! If I could only exceed her skill… I would be…
I didn’t know. Awesome or something.
It was a passion of mine, this competition to be the internet-best at
coding (and otherwise). Laska was in a battle and she didn’t know it
yet. Nor would she ever. Pathetic as it was, this was my version of
teenage rebellion: a form of pseudo-hacking. If one can even call it
that.
As it happened, I managed to stumble upon the loophole: an infinite
money machine for my account if I just entered my code into the
‘personal pages’ that were provided for each member. All I really had
to do was make modifications to the ‘bank deposit’ page’s source code
– and then enter as much money as I wanted when I visited the
‘personal page.’ For some reason, the changes were manifested on the
site’s database. I realized I could do this with every ‘original’
page, and set about to making myself legendarily internet-rich for a
while.
To make a long story short, a game isn’t fun when there are no
challenges involved. I eventually told Laska (but not before
screen-shoting my triumph) and helped her implement filters to avoid
such trickery again. Looking back, it’s kind of a pathetic story, but
then it was very, very important to me. I’m pretty sure that that was
the only time I ever bent the rules… really! I swear!
Getting your driver’s license is one of the biggest milestones in a person’s lifetime. However, with a license comes a lot of responsibility and added expenses. One of those expenses is paying off unnecessary speeding tickets and traffic fines. Luckily, like with all other aspects of life, there are loopholes that can possibly save your wallet hundreds of dollars.
ReplyDeleteOn December 23rd, 2010 it was time to upgrade my provisional auto license to an auto license with no restrictions. This meant that I was now legally permitted to drive with multiple passengers at any time to anywhere. Therefore, I decided to immediately pick up four of my close friends and drive around aimlessly. My first goal to accomplish was to drive on a state highway, something my parents refused to let me do with my “Cinderella” license. I decided to take Interstate 295 South from New Jersey to Delaware. Sadly, my trip to Delaware was cut short.
After driving for approximately twenty-five minutes on the interstate, I saw the famous “Road Work Ahead” warning sign. I knew this meant to slow down but my instinct told me to just keep driving at eighty-five miles per hour. Before I knew it the flashing red and blue lights appeared in my rear view mirror. I had no choice but to pull over and hopefully persuade a law enforcement officer into not giving me a speeding ticket. My luck had just run out. After running my information he determined that I was going twenty-seven miles over the speed limit. Even worse, fines were double in a work zone and I had to stand in front of a judge to fight for my innocence in hopes of not getting multiple points on my driving record.
I was scheduled to be at the Woolwich Township Courthouse on January 16th, 2010. However, probably due to all the built up stress and nervousness, I caught a horrible case of the flu. Well at least that’s what I told the courthouse in order to reschedule my court date. Once again on February 4th, at nine o’clock in the morning, I was due to stand in front of a judge. When I arrived to the courthouse I was twenty minutes early. To my surprise, when nine o’clock came around I was approached by an older lady who gave me the best news of the day. She told me that the officer who had issued me the ticket has not showed up to testify his case. Therefore, my case would be dismissed and I was free to go.
Approximately two weeks later my cousin received a speeding ticket. When I heard of the news I immediately called him to tell him to reschedule his court date. Although he thought the plan was ignorant at first, he soon thanked me for saving him over five hundred dollars. He too got lucky because the officer who issued the traffic ticket did not show up to the rescheduled court date. Although I discovered a loophole of possibly avoiding hefty traffic fines, I would not become dependent on it. The best ways to avoid any fines at all is to follow the traffic laws in place or better yet obtain a Federal Order of Police (FOP) card.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school I was on the Southern Regional Varsity Cheerleading team all four years. I was great and I loved doing it, although it was very challenging and time consuming. But besides that, it was pretty dangerous. Through out those four years I was injured plenty of times. I broke my right ankle, tore ligaments in my left ankle and left hand, and probably a couple other things that I can't remember at the moment.
ReplyDeleteMy senior year was when I broke my right ankle, in WARMUPS for a competition, which royally sucked. Luckily for me I broke it earlier in the season and was healed and ready to compete for Nationals that winter. Which, in case you wanted to know, we got 17th in the nation out of about 65 team. But anyway, Nationals was in Orlando, Florida so besides going to a warm sunny state in the winter to compete we also got a small vacation. We had a couple days to ourselves to go around the parks as a team and just have fun, so that's exactly what we did.
So were sitting in line for the Tower of Terror, and trust me that line was long. Then an idea came to me. I have a previously broken ankle, and my coach's daughter had a sprained ankle. Except she was in a rented wheel chair so she didn't have to crutch around the park, but we still had the crutches.. So I thought, what if she was in the wheel chair and I took the crutches? It would be a perfect way to create a loophole and cheat our way to the front of the line. Of course that was a thought before, but there was eight of us and one person in a wheel chair won't get eight people to the front of the line, but TWO injured people? It's a possibility. And it worked! All eight of us got pushed to the front of the line and we got on the ride within 20 minutes, compared to 2 hours. Now, I don't know about you but I think that's a great way to overthrow the rules.
When I think of any loophole story a smile comes to my face. There’s a point in my life where I seem to get lucky, outsmart, or just have an overall demeanor to get away with things. My whole life this has been an asset of mine. I knew every single which way to get out of class in high school. Whether it was my sister being pregnant or my car was getting towed I always found a way. Loopholes are usually not the “right” thing to do but typically make your life a little easier. Its basically the lazy man’s way out.
ReplyDeleteSince I don’t want to bring anything up that may have been either wrong or untruthful in the past I’ll give a tidbit of advice to everyone at Drexel University. This information is very useful and will bring you great satisfaction if you use my advice correctly. I also don’t want you to tell anyone else about this trick because if to many people know it won’t work anymore.
The Insomnia cookie truck could be one of the best smelling things my nose has ever smelt. Walking by that truck instantly makes my mouth water as if I was a panting dog. When you do decide to buy a cookie from the insomnia cookie truck you always leave wanting more. This is where my method comes into play. Every time I order a cookie I instantly say, “Throw in an extra one for good luck” as the employee is grabbing the cookie for you. Make sure you give a little laugh and smile to let the person know you mean well and that it’s not a big deal if he throws another one in. If you don’t believe me I want to give you a stat that may blow your mind. I am 8 for 8 on this attempt. So basically this works ever time! So if you want more cookies or bang for your buck try this method. After writing this I am probably going to do this again later today when the time is right. If you also want to increase your odds do it on a time when know one else is around because they are much more likely to hand a free cookie out than.
While in the military I was stationed in Okinawa Japan. Okinawa is an island off of the mainland that is treated as Japan’s Hawaii. It was getting toward the end of my two year assignment there when I broke my wrist. Officially I broke it in a game of basketball one weekend, but it might have also involved allot of booze, a cinder block wall and a questionable decision. Breaking my wrist was a bit of a problem, as the Marines don’t let you leave your duty station and move on to your next assignment if you have certain medical issues. They place you on medical hold instead. I was looking forward to coming back to the states and was going to make sure that I wasn’t placed on medical hold.
ReplyDeleteThe way the medical system was set up in Okinawa is that each unit has their own BAS (even I have no idea what that stands for) and is basically a small clinic staffed by a bunch of enlisted Navy personal with almost no medical training, and a few actual doctors. You go to the BAS when you’re sick and they take care of what they can and send you to the specialists at the Naval hospital for anything serious. The BAS also kept track of your medical records and updated them when you came in. Since I broke my wrist on the weekend, the BAS with my medical record was closed, only a weekend duty crew was in to take care of emergencies. So I got sent to the Naval hospital for x-rays and was told to come back on Monday after checking in with my BAS to get a cast put on.....
I never did check in to my BAS to let them know what was going on so that they could update my medical record. I instead went straight to the hospital for a cast. At some point later I cut the cast off myself so that I could be cleared by my BAS to rotate to my next duty station. It took me the better part of an hour sitting in my barracks room with a Gerber multi tool hacking, sawing and prying at this cast to get it off. It was a messy, stinky job (Okinawa was a subtropical climate so you can imagine how sweaty that cast was) and I still wore a brace on my wrist because it hurt like a bitch, but it was all worth it once I was on that plane home.
My life is pretty much composed of extreme busyness. I am double- or triple-booked pretty much every night of the week with service clubs, sports, sorority life, friends, and just plain being an engineering freshman. In my spare moments, I search for loopholes. If there is a way to make my life easier, I am definitely going to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, working is not easy, so I try to work as little as possible. Nonetheless, I calculate the cost of things in hours that I would have to work for them and as I make a mere $8/hour usually things suddenly seem not worth it. This leads me to the beauty of loopholes.
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite loophole is the ‘limit one per customer’ rule. Yeah, right, who follows that. Generally, if there is a limit, it is because it is a great bargain and I would buy 30 of them if I could. Actually, this is the case at Staples. My mother is a high school art teacher so she gets teacher discounts. They are amazing! As every office-supply lover knows, each summer Staples offers Penny Deals which is where they sell things such as reams of paper, packs of pencils, scissors, notecards, etc, for a mere penny. Thanks to my mom’s teacher discount card we are allowed to buy 25 of each thing. 25! 25! I know right. Even though my mom is an art teacher and the only thing she ever uses are the scissors we go weekly, if not biweekly, to Staples. The clear benefit of this is that I get 25 of whatever wonderful thing I want for a mere $0.25. Not to mention, that at the end of every quarter, Staples sends her a rebate check to Staples Rewards Members which is automatic for teachers. This check is 15% of all the money she spent at Staples over the season. Technically, my 25 notebooks just became $0.21. I know, crazy.
Additionally, different states have different Penny Sales. I live in the glorious tri-state area of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, so there are three different Staples, in three different states, all of which are within 18 miles of my home. Clearly, this is a big loophole that Staples should consider remedying as my house is actually sent both the Delaware and New Jersey flyers.
One of the best ways that I have saved the big bucks is in graph paper composition books. Drexel requires them for Engineering 101, 102 and 103. The Drexel bookstore sells a beautiful Drexel-sponsored book for $12. Mine cost a mere 85th of a penny. That is $11.9915 saved and in my pocket – Technically, Drexel still gets it as they cost a bajillion dollars – I am rich!
Over the summer, there are also constantly school supplies drives for the less-privileged, so even if we don’t need the product, we still buy 25 of them and donate them. I have no idea how my backpacks we have stuffed over the years of the Penny Sales. With the donations, I feel even richer.
As a child I was always looking to cause trouble. I remember my mother would make deals with me to get me to do chores or homework. For example, my mother would tell me that I was not allowed to any desserts until I ate my dinner. I was not pleased with this arrangement. However, I quickly realized that my family only ate dinner together once or twice a week. So during the five days that my family and I did not eat together, I would tell my mother I’m eating dinner, wait approximately ten to fifteen minutes after telling her that, then I would tell her I finished my dinner and I would ask if I could have my dessert. My mother was unaware of my trickery until she noticed I never had any dirty plates in the dishwasher or sink. So after my mother was mindful of this fact, she started to inquire me about what I ate for dinner. I was completely caught off guard by her questioning at first. The first time she asked me about what I had for dinner I told her I went to a local convenience store and bought a hoagie. At first she seemed like she still possessed some suspicions, but then she just shrugged her shoulders and continued to do her work. After that moment I learned to come up with other excuses that sounded believably. For instance, I would say I made a sandwich and there was no dirty plate because I used a paper plate and threw it out. My mother never found out about my wickedness, but as I grew older and became more mature I stopped this mischievousness. As a child I was not only bad with eating sweets, but I was constantly playing video games.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger my grades in school were not very high. This was due to my extreme obsession of video games. My grades began to plummet at one point because my obsession of video games was so strong that I did not care about school anymore. My mother received a call shortly after my grades started slipping, and she was very upset with me. So to raise my grades, my mother made me a deal. My mother said that in order for me to play video games during the weekdays, I would have to finish all of my homework before I could play. I was reluctant to accept this negotiation, but my mother threatened to sell my video games if I refused. My first week of doing homework did not allow me to play video games because I was so far behind. Once I was able to catch up I still struggled to find time to play because I had a hard time understanding what we were learning. Then one day I came up with a brilliant idea. I joined the soccer team, but I told my mother that the practices were three hours long when they were actually one hour long. During the two hour period between being done soccer and going home, I went to my friends’ houses to play video games. This plan worked and my grades also went up. I have yet to tell my mother about what I used to do.
The Stadium Grille was a local sports restaurant with a family-friendly atmosphere with two locations, West Chester and Eagle, Pennsylvania. Equipped with 12, large, flat-screen televisions and four booths with their own little personal tube TV, “The Grille” was a perfect place to see the big football game with some buddies, watch an English soccer match with the rec team after a game, or just hang out when there was not much else to do. The Grille had air hockey and a hoops game, along with the classic hunting and racing games, towards the back. They served everything from 50-wing platters to the classic burger/fries combo. A cup was 1.50 and drinks were unlimited refills: by far their greatest selling point.
ReplyDeleteUnited Sports Training Center is an old airport hangar with lots of sports arenas. They have 8 outdoor fields for soccer or lax, and indoor hockey rink, two indoor soccer fields, and indoor and outdoor basketball courts. It even has a mini golf course! Members pay an annual fee to remain eligible for member benefits. Each member is given a card and a pamphlet every year. The card is not individual or able to scan, so all the benefits are listed in the pamphlet. Specifically, “buy one get one free kids meal” at The Stadium Grille.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic. Kids meals were either a hot dog and fries or 3 chicken fingers and fries. One order was 5.67, but with this continuous reward, two were 5.67! The Grille became our spot. My friends and I would split this deal: three bucks for three chicken fingers and fries? You truly cannot beat that. We abused that deal. They became skeptical, but I whipped out the pamphlet for the non-believers. 2009 came and went, and a new pamphlet came out for members in 2010. The offer for the Grille remained, but an asterisk had appeared below the coupon: *Offer valid until 2011. Technically, this meant that my last buy one get one free kids meal would be December 31st, 2010. I would have none of it.
The funny thing one, most employees didn’t know about this offer. Every time I presented the card and explained the deal, they would call the manager on duty over to handle the situation. The other funny thing was that shift managers were not notified when the deal expired in 2011. I ripped off the back page of my old pamphlet that read “2009” and carried that along with my to The Grille. No problems arose. My friends and I enjoyed that benefit all though the Flyers playoff games and into the summer.
I stopped going to the Grille so much before college. I guess there weren’t many sports events on TV, and I don’t really follow WWE. Over Thanksgiving break, I received news that The Grille, our Grille, had closed. I never even got to get one last double rib sandwich with gold sauce. I used to mix the gold sauce with catsup for my fries and chicken fingers. I was saddened by this discovery, and felt somewhat guilty for exploited a place I loved. However, I was told that the branch in Eagle, the one I never went to, was doing so bad that they brought the whole company under. Some chump restaurant called Wimpy’s is now fixing up to open where our old Grille was, but I’ll never forget original Grille.
My best friend Paula and I took our relationship of best-friendery to the next level in our sophomore year of high school, when we were together quite literally nearly every waking hour of the day. With identical school schedules, participation in the same extracurricular activities, and the fact that we lived a five minute walk from one another, we always said it would have been pretty ridiculous if we weren’t best friends.
ReplyDeleteIn the winter of tenth grade the two of us made it past our schools pre-auditions for District Chorus, meaning that anyone who was interested in auditioning for Districts would first have to be selected by our eccentric teacher Mrs. Hohweiler, one of our three choir teachers who was left with the sorts of tasks the other two didn’t care for, including competition-based choirs. As sophomores, we were thrilled to be one of ten or so of the students selected to move forward. Our choir program was the largest on the east coast and littered with singers who were to us, adequate, but probably by most considered ‘talented.’ Yes, we were snobs back then, back when we were still sucking up trying to get into the elite twenty-member Chamber Choir and earn solos and leads in the plays. By twelfth grade we would be doodling and whispering during Chamber practice wondering whether it had always been this bad or whether it was just our group; those times ninth and tenth grade when we looked toward that group with respect and sheer longing were so different from our future perceptions of it that I can’t decide whether I should shake my head at our naivety or remember it fondly. In any case, though, we were thrilled to have made the first cut toward Districts.
We auditioned and made the group, along with just two other girls in our school, both seniors. If we were cocky before, this only made it fifteen times worse. Now crazy birdlike Mrs. Hoh was handing us thick folders of music and squawking, “It’s your job to learn this. You can come in for lunch but the responsibility is yours, not mine. I’m too busy!” With wicked smiles we accepted.
This is where our loophole comes in. We were given permission to skip lunch to learn our Districts music, but for a solid two and a half weeks we spent the time sitting just the two of us in that choir room, talking and joking, sharing food and memories. We made up a game with the whiteboard markers, where, standing at either end of the whiteboard, you would each take a marker, place it on the silver tray that ran the length of the board, and throw it down the track as hard as you could. The markers would collide, and whoever’s marker made it the furthest from them won that round. We would later giggle when Mrs. Hoh complained that all the tips of her markers were squished into their plastic. We would then lose track of time and enter our biology class ten or sometimes twenty minutes late, always explaining to the droll but loveable Mr. Cooper, “Sorry, we were practicing for Districts.” For some backwards reason all the teachers Paula and I had in the same class liked us as a pair, so though he would chastise us, he never really got angry.
That month of missing out on lunch and bio to spend time with my best friend goofing off and accomplishing practically nothing was one of the happiest of my life. In ninth grade Paula and I had gone through a bit of a rough patch, and I believe I have that month to thank for restoring our friendship to what it remained for the rest of high school and what it is today: constant, nonjudgmental, and oh so fun.
Throughout my teenage years I've always been in search for the "easy way" to beat the system and get ahead of everyone else. When I think of loopholes, one particular situation comes to mind. In my Junior year of high school at a Catholic school in South Jersey, I used to do whatever I could possibly think of to get out of class. I was able to find a loophole in the system where after attendance was taken in each class, I would ask for the "nurse's pass" so the teacher would sign for it, and then I would go down to the cafeteria until the start of the next period and repeat the process. However, on one occasion I got greedy and decided to take this loophole to the next level. On the last period of the day when the class started, I got the nurses pass and decided to walk home. I was caught on camera the next day crawling between the cars by the Nun who happened to be principle of the high school. It was embarressing when she confronted me about it to say the least, but my friends found it to be very amusing and a few started to copy my ways until the loophole was finally found. Overall, its always something I'll remember that not many kids in the school tried before me.
ReplyDeleteTo be quite honest I was usually a very good kid growing up I rarely if at all bent the rules for anything. I was one of the very few actually following them. I guess the only real time I can think that I have done anything is like when I hold a leadership position in an orchestra no matter how strong the level of it. Sometimes I take advantage of thinking I am at the front of the section, I was raised by a Philadelphia Orchestra musician and other professional teaching at one of the top music schools in the country. So I had a tendency to believe that like the rules did not apply to me. So we always told our sections in order to improve we must practice. That has been like the one thing I have been doing since I began at the age of five. And yet I don't practice what I preach so to speak sometimes because I tell others to practice but because for me being at the front of the section I think I don't have to practice as much as the others. But that does not mean it is okay to do that. So if you are a musician do NOT under any circumstances think that is acceptable because it does not pay when you go into a rehearsal unprepared. Yet I ended up leading one of the best youth groups in the Philadelphia area with such little time focused on the music. I ended up 1st chair in that orchestra my senior year. It took me 5 or 6 years to end up there.
ReplyDeleteAt school though we had periods at the end of the day called academic recovery you were given a slip and could sign up to go see a teacher that you needed extra help on something for. And my junior and senior year I was like you know what never mind academics I am majoring in music and auditioning for music for college. That needs to be my focus. And when I felt my academics could be pushed aside I signed up all the time to actually go to the music director and use the orchestra rehearsal room to practice in. I still took advantage of time. But do not do what I do that is a big mistake if you plan to go into the arts as a profession do not toss it aside and think it is not worth your time in a group you will waste everyone's time!
At age 8 the boardwalk can seem sort of bland aside from the candy and ice cream shops. However, My brother Nick and I had discovered an arcade on 12th street that became the highlight of our vacation. Our favorite game was the coin game. If a token was dropped correctly it would fall down, knock tokens into the first level, then the second level, and eventually into the bottom of the machine. The more tokens that fell into the bottom, the more tickets won. Nobody really played the coin game because it was not well lit and located in the back corner of the arcade. Nick discovered that if you dropped a nickel into the right slot of the left coin game, it would knock far more tokens into the bottom then any other slot in the arcade. We used a nickel instead of an arcade token, because the weight of the nickel forced more coins off the edge. Day after day we took advantage of this, gaining far more tickets than the average arcade-goer. Eventually the arcade staff caught on, and saw what we had been doing. But that wasn’t until our vacation had ended, and the next year we were onto a new arcade anyway.
ReplyDeleteUntil the last few months or so, half of the trains on R5 line wouldn't travel north past Lansdale. This was particularly a pain for someone like me who lives closest to the station that is two stops past Lansdale. I would have to drive further to Lansdale to have the benefit of being able to hop any train home from Drexel at the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteLansdale station has a HUGE parking lot. And even if I got there by 8am the place would be nearly filled and I'd have to park near the back and have a good walk ahead of me to get to my train. On days when I was running late, this was rather inconveniencing.
Parking costs $1.00 per day...in coins. I'm a college student. Rarely do I have a spare dollar let alone carry coins with me. This was also inconveniencing. Notice a pattern? But then I found my loophole. The back entrance to the train station is like a long driveway and it cuts between a baseball field and an auto repair shop. Apparently SEPTA does not own this land and thus there is free parking along the right side of the road. So any time when I am short on change or am running late, I can count on this free parking...unless there are no parking spots left. I haven't found the loophole for that scenario yet. stay tuned
My worst experience with parking tickets came my senior year of high school. As I was leaving with my buddy Paul for lunch, I had hardly left my parking spot before I noticed the white envelope on the driver's side of the windshield. I was so pissed. "A parking ticket?" I thought as I pulled aside to see the damage. "500 dollars?!" I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Maybe my hunger had me so delusional that I couldn't make out the amount I owed for this ticket. Well, that was not the case. I had parked in a spot that had just been converted into a handicap space only days before. Instantly, I told Paul we couldn't go because I had to figure this out. I talked to my mom and Kip the resource assistant. Wise ole' Kip told me to talk to our school police officer. Hopelessly, I walked into Officer Hagloff's office; ticket in hand. I pleaded my case and begged for a solution. On the spot, Hagloff broke out some little pocket book and began to ask me questions. After getting interrogated, he said that since there was no indication on the ground of it being a handicapped spot that I might be able to protest it. His response caught me completely off guard. Never would I think that a policeman would try to fight the legal system, or even suggest it! I went home and once again told my story to the little box on the ACPD's parking services website offers to ticket protesters. I waited and waited for a response and it never came. It wasn't until a few months later when my mom was paying a parking ticket of hers did we find out that my ticket had been dropped due to how new the parking spot was and since it wasn't properly marked. You never know what can happen when you stand up for yourself.
ReplyDeleteReflecting back on my personal snapshots of time, it was tedious to find a specific instance involving a loophole. I did manage to exhume a minuet episode from my childhood excursions. I was in New York City with my mother, a maze of large buildings and endless noise. Our intended destination was the metropolitan museum of art. The museum was an unknown temple of exploration for me, my anticipation was exploding. The trek was nearly complete upon reaching the white steps leading to the entrance. Seeming to be as tall as a Mayan temple, we took one white slab at a time. With the glass doors in view, my exhaustion was quickly replaced with the return of my enthusiasm. Emerging out of the crowd a woman in a grey coat approached. Before my mind could arrange the details of how to react, she handed me a blue plastic button (which was the admission ticket to the museum.) She explained herself by mentioning that the prices were too high and she wanted to give back. I wasn’t sure what action to follow but I managed to mumble a thank you. My mother and I eventually surfaced at the grand lobby. We concluded for me not to waste a gift and perhaps it was fate intervening. So I used the admission button and sneaked around the entire day, pretending I was a spy on a tactical mission. There are always loop holes in the world to find but it’s if you choose to use them that’s not mentioned in the fine print.
ReplyDeleteWhen I turned fifteen, the well known teenage attitude kicked in pretty quickly. My parents would nag and complain of my messy habits, and I would simply ignore them. I remember one day after a busy day of lacrosse practice and dance class, I walked into my room and could barely see the floor. Subconsciously knowing that my parents would come home and be furious, I chose to dump all my sporting equipment on the floor and watch loads of TV shows on my laptop. As soon as both my parents came home from their long day at work, they came into my room and asked me to clean my room. I mechanically nodded my head, and agreed to follow their polite orders. An hour or two passed by, my mom came in and asked me to clean my room again. After supper time, my parents were fed up with me and became really angry when they saw that my room was yet to be cleaned. They were lecturing me about my study habits and my priorities. I was tired of hearing the same lecture over and over so I came up with a loop hole of me own. I simply responded to them, "Mom, I didn't say 'when' I'd clean my room, I just said I would get it done". Hearing this, my parents laughed and knew that I had a handle over my tasks. Yes, I pushed them to their limit, but since then, I have always left my room in a very good condition.
ReplyDeleteI was the baby of the family. So, I was always told by my older siblings- right from the get-go- I'll get away with murder. As a child, in most cases, I could do no wrong with in my mother's eyes. I was a nasty little trickster. Of course, my middle sister was the brunt of my pranks. I would get her so mad at times- she would chase me around the dining room. We had a reaaly serious chase one time. She slipped on the hardwood floor, and she slid making contact with the china cabinet. The cabinet leaned- almost tipping over. She was blamed, and I was told not to do run in the house. The reason for her punishment- she was the older one. Then she married and left the house when I was 10 years old. Life stayed quite until I hit my teens. After attending Catholic school through the eigth grade, I was transfered to public education system for high school. This was mainly due to my rebel attitude in seventh and eigth grades. I tried to test the waters there to see what I could get away with and loopholes to help me get around their system. But, the Catholic school system didn't give you much wiggle room for those actions of trickery. The bottom line- your son is going to attend public high school. There finding loopholes was easy. The first, I generally was a honest person. I would just get by my courses. I would get around any major projects just by carrying extra books, or on some cases, I would just carry extra notebook papers. The teachers involved with the the projects- would give me extensions or just assign something else. Detention- though- I didn't serve detention numerous times- I did wiggle my way out of sentence a couple of times- by saying- I have a sick niece at home, and my mother (grandma) needs a break. It was really to easy. I had numerous situations of loopholes- attending all three lunches, early dismissal- due to the conditions of the bathrooms in school, and I did get away with these performances. But, once I was in my junior and senior years, I stopped playing the games and taken my school work seriously. In fact, I didn't miss a day in my junior year, and I was on the honor roll and awards until graduation. My focus in life is have fun but not at the cost of creating deception.
ReplyDeleteMrs. J, my high school English teacher, was a strange character. She was about 70 years old, walked with a cane and could not teach even if her life depended on it. I always felt bad for her because of the lack of respect students gave her, but she deserved it. She would always forget what she assigned for homework, never gave exams or quizzes, and rarely collected any work (This is the first loophole; I never did any assignments I knew she wasn’t going to collect). Our English class was probably the most dysfunctional class in the history of English classes. I am still amazed on how she even received her job and more amazed on who gave it to her. On a typical class day, half the class was usually missing, students never paid any attention to what she said, and she never took attendance. This was great because I went to about 50% of her classes. This is also the 2nd loophole of the class, one in which I took full advantage of and also probably contributed to my overall failure in the English language. These loopholes provided a perfect formula for disaster but there was also a 3rd loophole.
ReplyDeleteI remember sitting the back row of the class with my friend Nate. Nate and I always shared our work and we usually worked together to do assignments. The little work that we were required to hand in usually had the same or similar answers. So as you may expect, we received the exact grades for everything we handed in. Because we did everything together and our grades were the same, you would expect that we would receive the same grade on our report cards. That was not the case. Nate received an “A” and I received a “C”. Her grading is based on the few assignments she assigned and NOT on participation (which Nate and I never contributed to) or exams (there wasn’t any!). Attendance was also never a factor because Nate and I always skipped class on the same days!
I was mind blown by my report card. When I questioned her about my grade, her vague response was: “you didn’t do your work”. I found her response hilarious because her answer was obviously incorrect. So I came to two conclusions. She forgot that I handed in every assignment on-time or her grading is based on how much she likes you (The only difference between Nate and I was that Nate had a good relationship with Mrs. J and I didn’t). The latter ended up being true and it is also the 3rd loophole. The 3rd loophole is that grades weren’t based on assignments; it is based on how much the teacher likes you. This is awfully sad but true. Over the span of the next 3 months, I started getting to know Mrs. J. This was not because I was interested in knowing more about her, but because my grade depended on it. Over the period of getting to know her, I was still doing the same bad habits. When my report cards came, as you may expect, I received an “A”. This obviously says a lot to the overall quality of my education growing up, because this isn’t the first teacher to base their grades on “LIKE” scale, I had many.
The closest thing to a loophole that I think I've discovered involves adopting a dog. My brother and his girl friend wanted to get a dog together but they lived in separate apartments were dogs weren't allowed. When they went to adopt a dog in Boston, they discovered that you would have to give your landlord's information so that they could contact them to see if pets were allowed. This would also allow the landlord to charge you an additional pet deposit. My brother and his girlfriend were saddened by this news and put off getting a dog until they came home for Thanksgiving and started talking about it. I mentioned that there was an animal shelter nearby. They, again, voiced the same concerns with the landlord and the no pet policy. I suggested that they use our home address for the place where they would be keeping the dog. When the shelter reviewed their application form they ended up calling my mother who stated that there were no other pets in the house, which was a lie, and that the new dog would have a large backyard to play in and that there would be no issues with having a pet. Once my brother and his girl friend fell in love with a small jack russell they took her home immediately. She has since been a part of their family in Boston and is even included in their Christmas cards.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I've never really felt right using loopholes. I feel like any situation I've been in I've always felt the need to be honest. But I will say that one loophole I've used before is for when I have a job. It's not that I don't work hard or don't need to make money but sometimes having both school and certain jobs can be a disastrous combination. It's all about prioritizing but sometimes it proves to be too much. Each time I get a job, it has usually been to get a little spending money on the side or to save up for the future. However, I've also used the excuse of school being my first priority in order to end working at a job. Each time it's been the truth. One time I had a job for a few months but then school began and it was my senior year in high school. I was applying to colleges, taking the SATs, taking 4 AP classes, playing on a sports team, and co-leading a school volunteer group. I actually liked that job but I had to let school take priority. I've also used the excuse as a loophole though because I've had jobs before that I've hated. If the environment sucks, the employees or boss are unbearable, or I feel like I'm not gaining anything from the experience then I'll usually use the excuse of school taking priority over a job. There was a job I left because I went on study abroad but then when I came back, I quit because school is what is most important to me.
ReplyDeleteOver the course of my 5 years at Drexel, I have discovered a simple way to make the first two weeks of a term very casual and relaxing. As we all know, everyone must take electives outside of their major. When I schedule my classes and I have to take general electives, I strategically sign up for electives that have many sections. It doesn't really matter if all of the other sections are full when you register, it just has to have alot of them. A spot will open in most full sections almost always during the first two weeks. During the first and second week of the term, If I find the elective to be boring I will drop it and pick it up again at the end of week two in another section, time slot and with a different instructor. In week three, I enter as a brand new student to the class and receive no penalty for missing the first two weeks of class and assignments. I know this is a rather sheisty thing to do, but it is a loophole. It does require you to bust your hump in week three to catch up with material though. But some terms, its well worth it.
ReplyDeleteThis story may sound bad but I was very young when this happened. I was sitting in my 1st grade class with my two best friends Joe and Jared. Joe, Jared all sat next to each other with a couple of friendly faces around us. I remember first grade being a fun year, I went to a small catholic school a town over from where I live called St. Ann's. I went to school there from kindergarten to 8th grade, and this incident was one of my most embarrassing I guess you could say. There was this girl sitting in front of me, her name was Faith. Me and Faith became friends after the 1st grade, but during the time she did not know who I was. So Faith starts making fun of me, for no reason at all and I was taken back at first. She continued to make fun of me and I just tried not to react, but Joe and Jared were telling me to take action. So I did, I stood up to Faith and exchanged some words with her. This did not result well and she started to cry, soon the classes attention was on me and I looked like the bad guy. Faith was crying and being very overdramatic and told my teacher that I said this and that and made her cry. I didn't know what to do because I never get in trouble, I was a well mannered student! So when my teacher came up to me and asked for an explanation I told her that I was a"monkey" according to the Chinese calendar. I guess I was just so shocked that I was actually getting in trouble, and I didn't know what to say. My teacher gave me a puzzled stare while everyone in the classroom was laughing at the response. My teacher was actually so puzzled by my response that she turned around and went back to her desk, and everyone went back to doing there work. I guess my loophole in this situation was saying something completely irrelevant to the teacher to the point where she didn't even know how to react. And in the end, me and Faith became really good friends.
ReplyDeleteDuring my senior year of high school, my friends and I liked to play hooky every once in awhile. We liked taking a day off to go to Six Flags or the beach. Our school was very aware of this problem and had many ways to prevent it. For instance, if a student was absent for more than one period without notice from a parent, the school would call the parents to let them know. To get around that, we decided to take it into our own hands. We found that if we called the school and let them know we would not be there, that they would take no further actions, and we got away with it. This little trick came in handy on those beautiful spring days, where the last place you want to be is cooped in school all day long.
ReplyDeleteLoopholes, where do I start. The more loopholes you are aware of in life, the easier it is. No if and or buts about it. Loopholes are great. My favorite one is also a saying, Shit runs downhill. Its true, shitting downhill will save you a lot of headaches. Luckily I have a brother, he lives downhill from me. Hes about 5 years younger and can finally lift 50 pounds without complaining some fairy princess. So now that he thinks hes big and tough, anything my dad asks me to do, I immediately pass it along to him and allow himself the chance to prove me wrong. Because i know i can do the job, but him doing it is a whole other story. I know several other loopholes, most have to do with relationships with women and that would not be appropriate here. Loopholes are all about playing your cards right, knowing when to bluff, and when to fold. No loophole is bigger that the shit runs downhill loophole though. saves me all the time.
ReplyDeleteReading is my favorite past time. I love to snuggle up with a blanket, and maybe my cat, and divulge myself in a whole other world. While I enjoy reading, I never like paying for books. I usually only read a book one time and then it collects dust on a shelf. I have used the library often to rent books for free instead, but that always leads me to a few dollars in fines, thanks to my forgetful mind. When I received a Kindle as a graduation gift from my boyfriend and his family, I was ecstatic. I now had a new gadget for leisure and study time; perfect for college. However I knew I would have to buy the books to read on my Kindle. Once I set up my Kindle so I could buy books right off of it, I found out what great deals the Kindle bookstore had. Most of the books are must cheaper than normal bookstore prices and there are even hundreds of books that are 99 cents or even free! Still most of the books that I wanted to read are about 8 dollars and it still pains me to spend that much for a book I know I will not read again, no matter how much I like it. For the first few months that I had my Kindle, I did not read on it much. When Christmas break rolled around, I started to read a lot again, now that I had much more time on my hands. So I pulled out my Kindle, and started downloading books one at a time as I finished them. I was enjoying reading so much that I read a book in about two days. After reading three books, I remembered that Kindle users could share books with each other. My boyfriend had just gotten a Kindle and I wanted to see if I could share some of my recent purchases with him. Apparently only a select few books are enabled to share with another user and when I checked my purchases through my Kindle account, none of the books I had had this feature. But suddenly I remembered that when using my Kindle before, I have accidentally bought a book by accident. Right away, the message that appears after your purchase contains a link that will let you get a refund. You can also go online on your Kindle account and obtain a refund. I figured you could get a refund back in about 24 hours of your purchase, whether you did not mean to buy the book or perhaps it was the wrong purchase or even offensive to you. When I checked the recent books I had purchased in the last week, I was still valid for a refund. I was curious as to whether I would really get the full amount of the purchase back. When I clicked to get a refund, it asked me for a reason for my return. The pre-determined answers did not match my reason of curiosity, so I just clicked “other”. Within about a day, my online banking system showed that in fact I did get a full refund for the book I returned. So I went ahead and returned the others I just purchased. Each of them was fully refunded, and I continued to just choose “other” as my reasoning, when really I should have been saying “I found a loophole in your system!” If I read a book in under a week, I still continue to use my loophole. I usually feel bad about continuing to do so. Sometimes my extreme guilt takes me as far as believing that someone is watching my Kindle account and getting ready to report me to the FBI. Yet, I cannot help laughing to myself about the simplicity and advantage of the loophole I discovered.
ReplyDeleteMy sophomore year I went down to the beach with a bunch of my friends. We were drinking and decided to go take a walk to the board walk. While we were there my friend told me she really had to go to the bathroom but there weren't any near us. At this point so I took her down underneath the boardwalk. We were hiding back in while she was going to the bathroom and beach cops pulled up. I took off thinking my friend would follow and went and met up with my other friends back up by a tshirt shop. We were sitting there waiting for my friend hoping everything was going to be fine. She sweet talked her way out of getting cited for public urination. She told the cops that the bathrooms were closed and she didn't know where to go. Also she assured them we weren't on our senior week from high school because these cops had enough of a bunch of drunk teenagers. She knew what they wanted to hear and told them exactly that.
ReplyDeleteWhen the first iPod came out, in 2001, I was ecstatic, a media player, small enough to fit in your pocket that, get this could store hundreds of songs from any artist, any album. You didn’t even have to buy the album; you finally had the luxury of picking out the individual songs you wanted. I was in awe, I had to have one, or I was pretty sure the world would stop turning. I begged my parents for one, made a couple religious promises to the almighty upstairs and crossed my fingers on Christmas day. Lucky for me and for the rest of humanity my father bought me one, and the world kept on turning. It was even better than I had imagined, and since very few things are, those white headphones never left my ears. For the first week I was serenated while I slept by Los Lonely Boys and Destiny’s Child. In retrospect it probably was the best idea to sleep with my headphones in, but it couldn’t be helped, I was a woman obsessed, possessed by, as far as I was concerned the best invention in the world, thus far. It was then that I discovered it’s one detrimental flaw, I was bopping to Mariah Carey when she stopped singing, I was appalled. It turned out the battery life of the Ipod was quite short. I couldn’t get through the day without charging it, and if I was in the car and the Ipod died, I had to actually converse with my mother. I would not be subjected to such atrocities so I set out to find a solution. A week later I had it, now common knowledge but at the time I was pretty confident that this was the proof to my theory that I was in fact a genius. I slid the tab that was on the top of the Ipod over to the left, thus in my mind tricking the Ipod into thinking it had more battery than it actually did, now my Ipod would last for days. As for as I was concerned I had cheated the system and I was ready for my Noble Peace Prize.
ReplyDeleteJoseph Wahl
ReplyDeleteLoophole In The Law
One loophole that has happened to me, was the time I got into a car accident. What happened was this guy who had no license and was under the influence of alcohol and drugs, rear-ended the back of my car. Once my car was hit. The person drove off and came back three times, my friend got his license plate number Therefore; I was able to call the police, who found the person walking in his house with cocaine. The loophole was a Pennsylvania state law that states a person only has to have $10,000 collision and $15,000 liability coverage. After the accident the $10,000 was not enough to cover my car, since my car was totaled. My insurance had to pay the remaining amount for the rest of my vehicle. Personally I feel that Pennsylvania needs to mandate a new law that the minimum collision coverage of $30,000 and $40,000 in liability Therefore; Would mean that your insurance wouldn't be left paying what the other person's insurance does not pay. I think it would make Pennsylvania a safer place and also make drivers pay more attention while driving. I hope that most readers would agree with me, because it's common practice with insurance companies to cut their collision and liability coverage of their policies so that customers could get cheap coverage, also known as cut-rate insurance.
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I was, and still am known for saving my work for the last minute. This post, like most of my work, is late. If I somehow manage to get work done with time to spare I acquire funny looks from all my friends. I’m not sure why it happens; maybe I’m lazy, too busy, have other work I’d rather be doing, but whatever it is, I have found ways to cope. Loopholes if you will.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first methods I learned for avoiding my “late fees” was the excuse, but not just any excuse. The weirder the story is the less they will question it. Anyone can come up with a “my dog at my homework”, or a “I fell ill with a stomach virus,” but how many students come to their teacher and tell them that they were loading 2x4s in their car last night and while loading accidentally locked their keys in the car... with their homework inside. I can guarantee they haven’t heard that one before.
My favorite trick has to be the corrupt PowerPoint. Older teachers don’t know anything about computers. Seriously, your lucky if they know what a flash drive is. So when you email them your PowerPoint but alas, it just wont open, they assume it got jumbled in the “ether” and it was no fault of yours. So you ask, how do I corrupt my PowerPoint? Simple, open the file in your favorite plain text editor (i.e notepad) and just delete random chunks of the funny lookin’ symbols. Save. Good luck trying to open that baby.
Happy slacking,
A.J. May
Leroy Mapp
ReplyDeleteMy favorite loophole that I discovered was when I worked at a restaurant called, "Glory days Grill," as a take-out specialist. I was able to get alot of seafood entrees for free. For example, at my job we get a 50% discount on food on the days that we are working during our allowed eating times. However, we can only get the discount for certain entrees, burgers, and other inexpensive stuff. Entrees that included steak or seafood, we could not get discounts for. This is where the loophole was utilized. For instance, one of the rules for my job is that if someone orders food and never picks it up, the food can be eaten by the take-out specialists that is working regardless of what it is. So, when I was yearning for some steaks or shrimp linguini, somedays I would make a fake order up or make one of my friends call in a order and never pick it up. I really loved using this loophole, the only thing is I couldnt do it often because I didnt want them to notice a trend that food would never be picked up when I was working. So, I would only do this like 1 time a month. But, everytime I did it, I would make it count and get like 2 steaks and some shrimp linguini.
I broke my leg a few years back and ever since I have been unable to perform certain physical tasks such as ice skating, certain bending and lifting and so forth. My loophole is that I can get out of things at school and home if I say that my leg is acting up. Whenever my gym class would go the weight room all I had to do was say that my leg was acting up and I was able to get out of the class and do what I pleased. Of course not all of this was a lie or did I rely heavily on this but it was nice every once in a while. At home if I had to move furniture or lift boxes to the attic and was not able to or just did not feel like doing it I could just say my leg feels weak and tense and start limping a bit and id get less physical tasks or get out of doing things altogether. I’m not sure if this count as breaking a “rule” but it’s my only real solid loop out of things.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, I dislocated my knee. With the injury, I could get out of my gym classes and did not have to do any physical activities. Eventually it healed and I was fine and could do gym class again. One day in gym we had to do the mile run. I am not a big fan of the mile run, so I said my knee was bothering me and was unable to do it. The whole class all I had to do was sit there while everyone else ran the mile. I could have run the mile, but I didn't want to and I didn't have to do a make-up. The knee injury was a great way to get out of those annoying activities we had to do in class and is the perfect loophole.
ReplyDeleteAt my high school, becoming an upperclassman was important for three reasons: study halls turned into “free’s” (a free block of time with the freedom to choose where you go and what you do), a closed campus became an open campus (allowing you to leave campus during a free period and go to Wawa for lunch or sleep in/leave early if you had a free period first period of the day/last period of the day), and access to student parking. However, that all changed when the construction started. Once they began demolishing the annex of our high school, the school board enacted a school wide closed campus policy for “safety reasons”. It didn’t stop there because the location of the new high school was located directly on top of the schools only parking lot.
ReplyDeleteParking on the streets surrounding the high school became the only place to park for students with frees and/or after school activities. The catch was that all parking surrounding the school had a two hour limit and with a closed campus it was nearly impossible to move your car without getting caught, unless you lived on the street. After a while, we worked out a system where a group of students would each take turns moving all the cars. So the seven us would rotate daily on whose turn it was to move all of our cars. In addition if anyone wanted to hitch a ride to school or be driven home by one of us, they would have to move the cars. Sadly, it worked too well because after two successful weeks of implementing the group system, it grew from a group of friends into practically the whole grade. With an influx of cars arriving at exactly 7:30 am and leaving at 3:00 pm everyday, it became obvious to the school and the abundance of residents that lived around the neighborhood that we had found a way to avoid getting ticketed and avoid getting caught. Unfortunately, once they realized this, it infuriated the school and more importantly the neighbors to no end.
The neighbors successfully petitioned the district to increase their parking authority presence around the school which, coupled with increased security at the school made it once again that much more difficult to participate in after school after activities. However, when I was walking home from school after practice I noticed that hanging from the rear-view mirror of my mom’s cars was a purple parking tag that had nothing but the month, year, and our cars license plate number. There was nothing that could possibly indicate our specific street other than the color. What really changed my miserable walk home was the fact that it was impossible to have a specific color for every street in the district and even if they split it up by towns they still wouldn’t have enough. The next day, my newfound optimism prompted me to park on the closest side street to the school and make the 20-yard walk to school. I left the purple tag that draped from my rear-view mirror to bake all day in my all black 94’ Honda civic. After practice, my teammates didn’t believe I was dumb enough to actually leave the civic in the same place all day. It turned out that my stubbornness didn’t get the best of me this time because the bright blue and white violation envelope our grade had become accustomed to was not tucked under my windshield wipers. Luckily, I was right and not every street had the same color but the two that mattered to me at the time did; so I had a permanent place to park and had did not have to make the three-mile trek on foot again.
During senior year of High School every student develops some version of senioritis. How bad of a case of senioritis developed into was determined by a student’s willingness to participate in school. We all went through the grueling process of researching, visiting, meeting, applying, waiting, anticipating and finally becoming accepted into colleges. The application process alone has us all not want to do required work for classes that was only busy work. We all wanted school to end quicker to start our new lives in the colleges we chose. Once your accepted and enrolled in a college all the homework assignments and projects just seem like a waste of time. Everyone I knew always tried to get out of school early or come late just to not be in school as long as was required. In my experience, I was able to find a loophole with a “get out of school free” pass. My school personally only allowed fifteen excused absences per semester. If you had more than this you would be required to make the hours up by attending weekend school. My excuse that legitimately worked had to leave school due to doctor’s appointments. This type of excuse overrode the limited to fifteen excused absences per term. Now in my defense this trend started out with legitimate doctors’ appointments. I was the needed type of kid who always was injured or had orthodontist appointments. After getting into a trend of leaving school early almost every other day I started to realize that I could use my appointments to my advantage. I got into a routine of leaving school early three to four times a week just because I could get away with it. A routine was formed with specific classes during the day corresponding to the times I would leave. During in particular my sixth period teacher, Mrs. Krycik, caught onto my predictable leaving schedule. Every day that I would leave early I would show her the slip the office gives out to show a student has permission to leave. When I would present it she would look at it and nod giving me the ok to leave class. That one week by the third day I was leaving early, as I was walking up to her desk, she told me “you can leave you don’t have to show me your slip, I know that you leave early everyday”. At this comment I smiled and became flushed and took my leave. I bypassed the school’s system for absences and used it to my advantage. Best to say I had the worst senioritis out of every student because I could not stay at school for a whole day.
ReplyDeleteI’d have to say that one of the best loopholes that I have had the pleasure of exploiting has been online chemistry these past few months. Chemistry is definitely one of my least favorite subjects. I hardly understand anything even after I study really hard. Every week or so we have chemistry problems that we have to do online. There are unlimited chances to do each problem. Most of the time these problems are difficult and deal with complicated material. However, most of the time we only have to complete one of the several problems out of each section. Many of these problems are multiple choices as well. So if there is a particularly hard section I just guess random problems and hope I get one of them right. Another loophole is that certain problems give you the correct answer and let you re-submit them if you get them wrong. During these questions I don’t even try sometimes and just submit a blank answer to get the correct one. I understand that these are not the healthiest loopholes to exploit and will probably end up in a lower grade than is possible, but for the time being it is quite satisfying to find a way around the system and cut down on my workload at the same time.
ReplyDeleteMy homework for my macroeconomics class last semester was sometimes difficult but always annoying. Most of the questions in the homeowork were either on material that was not covered in class, could not be found in the textbook, or damn near impossible. You were only allowed 2 attempts to get each question right (it was online) and my overall homework grade was not too good. A few weeks into the semester I noticed something. After getting a question wrong twice and seeing the X on the number stating I got it wrong, I saw on the bottom the screen another button that said "Try Again". I hit that button and it gave me the same exact problem and basically said "NOW this your last attempt", after telling the me right answer when the problem was marked wrong. It was smooth sailing on macro homework from that point forward. I would still try to actually do it for the sake of maybe learning something, but when i did not feel like it or got the question wrong, I could just get the question right. This loophole put my homework average somewhere in the 90s, helping me get a decent final grade for the class.
ReplyDeleteAs a child I was always very into video games and had be up to date on the latest systems and games. When the Play Station 2 came out I knew I had to have it and sure enough Christmas was right around the corner. My parents love their baby boy and got me a Play Station which couldn't have made me happier. To my disappointment my Play Station ended up not working when I plugged it in. My parents even tried to get it to work but it wouldn't turn on for some odd reason. I wanted to get another one so I though I could buy another Play Station and exchange them and my parents were pretty on board with it. I felt that what we did can be justified because my brand new Play Station didn't work, but I'm sure in some way it was illegal. Either way it worked and that could possibly be the best loophole I've done.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in 7th grade, we took math tests weekly. One week i got a 95, but the rest of my class did pretty bad. For homework we had to fix our mistakes and turn it in the next day. The next day one girl in my class asked if she could see my test, just to see what my answers were so she knew if hers were right. In my head, i knew there was potential for me to get in trouble,but with all the peer pressure i gave in. We ended up getting caught and we got sent to the principal. We both were told we were gonna get conduct referals. Later i was pulled aside and i told since my mom was the art teacher at the school, and since this was my first offense,i was off the hook.To this day i feel soguilty that i got off the hook and the other girl didn't.
ReplyDeleteWhile in High School I took college classes after school. College classes at my school could replace the classes I took at school with the courses I took. Since the courses I took at school were replaced with the college classes I had outside of school, the time spots for my school classes were replace with free periods. Starting from when I was a junior, I took two classes per semester leaving me with two hours of free time to do with what I pleased. Since my high school is located in center city, I and my school friends who were also taking college classes chose to spend our two hours of free time going through most of the stores in center city. We would go to the gallery mall one day, and on another just go down to a Caribbean food store and then go to the park. We even had time to go over to each other’s homes. My house was only 35 minutes away from school, so on the days when I was running low on lunch money, I would just take public transportation home, make something to eat, and then go back home. I think my mom didn’t like for me to have this perk.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of this loophole was not only that I had 2 hours of free time, but also that they were together and lead up to lunch time. We could leave school during lunch to buy something to eat and also we did not have to come back to school until the minute after lunch was over. We have an hour of lunch time so that meant I had 3 hours to do as I pleased. But even though we had the extra amount of free time at school, much of the time, my friends and I would just go out to one place, buy something to eat, and go back to school and eat during lunch. It was a perk, but sometimes we didn’t know what to do with it.
Part 1
ReplyDeleteOne transition I believe almost everyone experiences as they grow from a young school goer to a veteran senior in high school is the overall desired sleep steadily increases as the years go by. I think almost every student can relate when I say there should be naptimes in high school, as well as kinder garden, simply because we do more things therefore our passion for sleep drastically increases.
In the middle of my 5th grade year at Canton Central High School, I moved into a slightly larger house, a move my mother rightfully thought was necessary as I got older, as I grew in size, as well as the space needed for my activities. The most critical detail in my moving is the new location, directly across the street from the school. While I don’t believe I fully appreciated my relocation to the soon to be prime real-estate at the time, as years passed the perks of living so close to the school became more and more noticeable.
One of the first things I noticed is I tacked on an extra 15 minutes of sleep because I no longer had to get up at quarter to seven and catch the bus that took 20 minutes to go a mile because of all the stops. And as the years passed I found my morning routine become shorter and shorter. From waking up at seven and having a full bowl of cereal while watching tv in my kitchen, to the ever so slight delay of my awakening, making me cram my routine in to shorter and shorter amount of time.
As I entered high school my freshman year, I don’t think I can remember a day where I woke up before 7:15, a gradual change I know, but one that would not slow down anytime soon. As memories were made and the months passed, I soon found myself waking up at 7 thirty, rushing a bowl of cereal an my shower and walking across the street at 750, just ten minutes before my first class. This soon became my accepted and everyday routine by my junior year. And on the days I was daring to push the snooze button one more time than I probably should ,the army of busses pulling to the parking lot always helped me make the first stretch necessary to start the day.
Somewhere through my junior year I decided sleep was much more valuable than food, making it much more relaxing to have the passing busses serve as my alarm, for the threat of being late lessened. I always tried to see how late I could leave the house, and as my junior year came to a close I found my self leaving just 5 minutes before class starts and timing it so I walk in seconds before the daily pledge, something required if you did not want to get marked tarty. So by the end of my junior year I was waking up 20 minutes before the days school session began, and walking across the street, some days giving myself just seconds before the pledge.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteThe final chapter of my escapade that stretched over my entire grade based school career was my senior year. Along with senior year came senior privileges, allowing the students that maintain an 85 average to have the privilege to sign out and leave school during their study halls, or lunch. Knowing this the year before, and having one of my best friends mothers as my guidance counselor, I was able to set up my schedule so I had at least an hour and 45 minute lunch every day, if not 2 hours. Once I received senior privileges, surprising to my mother, I woke up 25, and sometimes even 30 minutes before my first class to fit in the missed bowl of cereal and cartoon watching in the morning. I felt the loss of a few minutes of sleep in the morning were worth It because of senior privileges, which some days allowed me to walk across the street after my first class, return for two more classes and be home for 2 hours, which I found was the perfect time to catch up on my sleep. While I certainly took advantage of the location of my house and often had visitors over during my free hours as well, on the days I felt sleep was more important I would simply explain and everyone would understand, and express their envy for my prime location.
Now looking back from a college perspective, waking up at 7 o’clock for school is so far, ridiculous as I have been fortunate enough to not have a class before ten am. But I am also very grateful for my prime location across the street from the school, as well as my senior privileges, each factors that proved to be loopholes which ultimately aided me in getting perhaps one of the most valuable things in life to a teenager in high school, sleep.
Quite honestly I don't often think of loopholes. However, there is one loop hole my family frequently takes advantage of. Whenever a coupon says things like, "one per visit", or "this coupon cannot be used with any others" we simply use them separately. One person will buy something with one coupon and another will buy something with another, if we still have more, we will simply walk out put some stuff away, walk back in and finish buying things. If it says " one per customer, we simply do the same thing ad when it says one per visit. it may take a bit of extra time, but it ends up saving a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in elementary school, I was a very excitable kid but I never bothered anyone. Of course I was the one that had someone bothering and bullying me. He picked on me for awhile and I never did anything about it or told anyone. I just let it go for 5 years. Then one day I was just minding my own businesses playing with my friends, and this kid started messing with me again. The next thing I knew I had hit the kid in the face. I was as shocked as he probably was, because I didn't think about it until it had already happened. After I thought about it for about two seconds, I hit him again, and again, and again. The aides broke up the fight (if I can even call it that) and sent me to the principals office. On my way there I ran into my teacher, and she asked where I was going. I didn't answer her and she just followed me to the office. The principal did not yell at me or anything. She just asked me why I did what I did. I answered "I don't know", because I didn't know what else to say. She said "I've never seen you in here before, so you must have had a reason". I said "He always picks on me and I just hit him". I explained to her that it had been going on for awhile. Then she explained that the kid was known to mess with other kids so she believed me. Usually kids get suspended for fighting, but I didn't receive any sort of repercussions. The principal called my home just to let my parents know what happened. I hadn't told them because I thought I would get in trouble. But my dad just asked "did you start the fight?", to which I replied, "no, I only hit him cause he always picks on me". My dad responded by saying "well I won't punish you because you were just defending yourself". It felt amazing to get a bully off my back and not even get in trouble for it.
ReplyDeleteI tend to avoid loopholes. Any time I try to wiggle through one, there seems to be less wiggle room than there originally appeared, and I abhor finding myself close to missing. However, there is one key exception I’m willing to make: software licensing. As a software developer, I often need to bundle things into my wares—drivers, interfacing components, etc.—and these are often provided to me freely under some terms for how I redistribute them. These license terms, which I actually read when I agree to them, are usually meant to prevent me from profiting off of someone else’s work. Although I’m not particularly interested in absorbing other developers’ revenue, I am quite interested in absorbing my own. I prefer to keep the details of how I do this relatively quiet, lest my legal loopholes constrain, but they tend to work effectively and efficiently, without anything seeming amiss, because in part, from a legal standpoint, nothing is amiss.
ReplyDeleteLong long ago, when I was but 17 years old, I went to a Catholic high school. We believed in the teachings of Cathol, and all that he stood for. However, this meant that on Halloween, a day usually fraught with costumes of all shapes and sizes, we had to abide by harsh rules; rules preventing us from dressing up as anything sinful. Being brought up on actual culture, I wanted to dress up with my friend, Brook, as the famous pot-smoking duo, Cheech and Chong. Obviously, this was forbidden. Now, I am not a girl who gives up easily. So we arrived at school, dressed in full stoner garb. But with one key expection. We taped signs reading "I AM AN ABSTINENT HIPPIE. I DON'T NEED DRUGS TO HAVE FUN" to ourselves and waltzed in to school. We just happened to be named Cheech and Chong, and introduced ourselves as such. Technically speaking, we broke no rules. The nuns were furious that day. But they could do nothing about it. And that is how I beat the system of the Catholic high school at the age of 17.
ReplyDeleteI have always had a strong interest in space, but unfortunately my math skills are not strong enough for a future in astrophysics. This is something I have come to accept. I figured my interest in space would never be more than stargazing through a telescope, but as I entered the college world many opportunities opened up to me. This nothing new for a college student but rarely do these opportunities lead them to the loophole I have found, especially in such an unpopular subject like geology. My passion for rocks has always been present but it never occurred to me to study the geology of other planets. Planetary Geology will allow me to study space while not doing nearly as much math, which makes it absolutely perfect. Thank you Temple.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school I played sports all year round. In the winter I wrestled. Wrestling was the toughest and most grueling sport i ever did. The long tiring practices along with cutting weight by not eating and sweating pounds off every day made most things a chore. I was tired and grumpy pretty much all the time. Any chance I could take to miss a practice I would take it and it just so happens that every year in January my school held a Red Cross blood drive where students and teachers could donate their blood. Junior and senior year I had to work the blood drive for the National Honors Society. I got out of class for the day and helped out with the drive. Whoever gave blood was not able to partake in any sport activity for one day. That was the perfect chance to miss practice. Although I did not actually give blood i did however take some extra iodine and band aids so it appeared as if I did. So for two years I would take the supplies and fake giving blood and be able to skip practice. That was the loophole that I used. There isn't a real message or meaning its just the only recollection I had of using a loophole to get out of something.
ReplyDeleteI only got one parking ticket for as long as I've been driving. It was this past June of 2011 and I got one as soon as I got to Ocean City, MD for senior week. The driveway to the house was extremely small and so there wasn't anymore room to park. I parked on the street the opposite way of traffic. Little did I know, that was illegal. I started bringing all of my stuff into the house and as I was walking back out to my car to get my last bag, I saw a cop standing next to my car with a notepad. The cop asked me if it was my car and I said ya. He then said if I was only parked there for 15 minutes he wouldn't of ticketed me but since he claims I was he gave me a $30 ticket. I knew I wasn't even parked there for any longer than ten minutes and tried to tell him but he wouldn't budge. He then told me he drove around the block around 5 times and everytime he passed the house it was still there. Which I knew he was lying to me because I knew how long I was parked there. This story really doesn't have anything to do with getting out of a parking ticket, but I explained how I at least tried to. I ended up paying the ticket and never got one since.
ReplyDeleteBack in middle school, I was taking a trigonometry class. I was a very smart math student but at the end of the marking period I was really beginning to slack off; I started not showing up to class, doing homework, sleeping in class, etc. I still had a very solid grade in the class though because I had done well all marking period. The last chapter was especially difficult because I had not even tried to learn the material and the final test was coming up. i had no idea what to do so talked to the teacher about it. It turns out that I didn't even have to take the test because no matter what grade I would get, I would have still passed the class. So I continued to not study and everything and not worrying about the test. I actually took it though to not get a zero but just randomly filled in answer bubbles. So overall, it was a pretty cool experience because I had found a loophole to get out of taking a very important test.
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