Words for My Enjoyment

I Could Be Your Safecracker-Upper

March 19th, 2006

Safecrackers are too serious.

I mean, have you ever hung out with one? They walk around with those doctor’s stethoscopes hanging around their necks like they can really hear the clicks and the clacks through metal doors with them, and they’re always wearing black leather gloves that are too tight for their hands and they’ve usually got those taglines they’re always saying like “oh, I’ll crack it.”

Isn’t it time someone lightened them all up?

Enter, ME. The Safecracker-Upper. There, hanging back on the sidelines of all the great safecracking moments, I could be the guy to make light of the situation. I could be the guy to get the safecrackers to crack-up when things aren’t going as expected.

For example, in a normal safecracking situation when a safecracker is going head to head with one of those really advanced safes that have the liquid safety measure installed… You know, the kind where if you damage the wrong part, liquid spills in and around the internal mechanism and forever keeps the safe from ever being opened? Or the kind of safe where if you crack the glass plates inside while drilling into the dial — that the alarm will go off? Well, when those moments normally happen in catburgling situations, everyone just becomes extremely depressed and the safecracker normally has ruined everyone’s fortunes in one full swoop. The depression becomes almost too great to handle and usually there’s some fisticuffs that follow and it’s generally not too fun of a time.

But not if I was around.

I would instill humor into every safecracking situation. I would bring laughter to safecrackers worldwide who weren’t having the best of luck. To putting gloves on my head and around my nose, and blowing air into said glove until I looked like Howie Mandel to being there behind my safecracking buddies in an lab coat and a Groucho Marx moustache for those moments when the safecracking just wasn’t up to par — cracking them up would be my ultimate goal.

But I wouldn’t make people laugh too loud.

Because more often than not, in the safecracking business — people who laugh too loud also end up in the slammer because if you’re loud and you’re trying not to be loud, well then being loud is the last thing you want to do at 4:32 AM in the morning, in some guy’s mansion, while he’s sleeping and while you’re trying to liberate those million dollar jewels from his safe. I mean, I once woke up in my bed in the middle of the night and heard laughing — and I immediately called the police. So would Mr. Mansion Man. So, as a safecrafcker, guffawing is totally out.

But minor laughter? Just infusing a little bit of the happy-gel into someone’s figurative hair? Taking the G out of safecracking glove and making it all about the safecracking love? Putting the smile into the Miracle Mile job and making a night crouched in an air conditioning vent more fun than playing hide and go seek in a condemned tenement building?

That’s what I could do as your Safecracker-Upper.

After listening with your safecracker stethoscope you might say something like, “I think I can hear the combination for this Winchester S6030T” and I would whisper, all dramatic-like: “I think I can hear dead people.”

After cracking the safety glass inside you might say something like, “I think I just crapped out,” and I might scrunch up my face and nervously shiver: “I think I just crapped my pants!”

After being caught by the local authorities, red-handed, there on the street with bags filled with millions of dollars of jewels, you might say something like, “There’s no way out of this” and I would, of course, launch into my famous “trapped in a box” street mime act, pretending to be trapped in an invisible box.

In all three scenarios, you would smile while you were laughing hysterically inside — all the result of me being your personal Safecracker-Upper.

Laughter, not crime, would be my business. I would be about my comedic hooks instead of your grappling hooks. Your depression would be replaced by my celebrity impressions. All the terror and frustration and criminal elements that would come along with the job of being a safecracker would simply melt away when you would come face to face with my trademark retelling of the classic joke “The Aristocrats” without using words whatsoever…but little Lego figures instead.

Yes, I could be your Safecracker-Upper.

And we would all get rich (and happy) in the process.

Posted under I Could Be, Safecracking. |