WhatFinger


A coin flipping scam to beat our schoolmates out of their lunch money

The Odd Man Ouch!



Although Dean and I were only in junior high school, we’ d already acquired hoodlum habits. Convinced that doing wrong was easier than doing right — and more fun — we devised a coin flipping scam to beat our schoolmates out of their lunch money. Operating on the five-flip, odd-man-wins-all principle, we two con boys lured suckers in and contrived to have our coins land on heads and tails, thus insuring we’d win the third guy’s money. We repeated this four out of five flips. On the fifth flip, we made certain both of our coins landed either tails or heads.
Dean, now a lawyer (with lawyer tendencies back then), would wink his right eye if we were to be heads, his left for tails. If the other gambler’s coin landed the same as ours, we continued flipping until he won. “Wealth heaped upon wealth, nor truth nor safety buys — the dangers gather as the treasures rise,” a wise philosopher once wrote. Sure enough, greed undid Dean and me. We became such proficient gamblers that we moved into the big leagues and began flipping dimes — and even quarters! Between classes and after school, we attracted a steady stream of unwitting victims with hefty allowances. Our pockets bulged with filthy lucre. Everyone was terrified of Mr. Crawley’s paddle. It was huge and had holes drilled through it, which decreased air resistance during the swing, thus accelerating the rate of closure between wood and derrière and thereby greatly increasing the pain’s intensity.

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Mr. Crawley didn’t particularly like Dean and me anyway, having learned through the grapevine that we gave him his nickname, Captain Crawdad, which spread like wildfire all over school. One day, we two hoodlums were in the back of his class counting our winnings, when someone passed a note to Dean. Upon reading it, he became as pale as Lazarus, come from the dead. The note read, “I will see you two gentlemen in my office after school today. – S. Crawley.” Our crime spree ended abruptly. We’d face his horrible instrument of torture, that was certain, but while we feared the punishment, what really terrified us was the uncertainty about who would be paddled last. The horror of watching the other criminal getting whacked to a frazzle, and then having to suffer the same fate was more than either of our remorseful young minds could bear. Even worse, word had gotten out about the impending adjudication, and we knew a mob of our enraged victims would hang around after school to hear us howl.

When we entered the death chamber, Mr. Crawley handed each of us a coin and kept one for himself. “Gentlemen, we will flip until one of you is the odd man.” “B-b-but, Sir, why are we flipping coins?” Dean quavered. Grinning sadistically, the executioner said, “Because whoever wins must listen to the other condemned man scream in excruciating pain, thereby doubling his torture. He won’t just be the odd man out, he will be — the odd man ouch!


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Jimmy Reed -- Bio and Archives

Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.

This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.

Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).


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