Monday’s reader question reminded me of legal scrape I nearly got caught up in, when I first started out as a PA. I was working out of an office above a 99¢ Store. You know, one of those places that plasters 99’s all over the place, like the lamest villain in Batman’s rogue’s gallery?
It wasn’t what you’d call a high-budget movie. Which is fine, I was pretty green, and I was lucky to have any job. Which is why it was I, and not someone from the props department, who had to return a bunch of fake body parts to the rental house.
You Know Where This is Going
So I carried a sack of bloody, severed limbs to my car, like Billy Chapman on the off season.{{1}} After packing them into my trunk, I drove away, unaware that anyone had seen me.
I returned the props without incident, but on the way back, I got a call from one of my fellow office PA’s. Worried that I had somehow messed up the return, I was instead confused when the PA said the police were in the office, looking for someone who matched my description.
When I asked why, she said, “Someone called 9-1-1 when they saw someone putting something suspicious in their trunk in the parking lot.”
“Did you tell them about the fake body parts?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
I nearly crashed my car, I rolled my eyes so hard. “Please tell them about the movie, and the absolutely fake body parts I put in the trunk.”
She set the phone down, and I heard her say, “We’re shooting a movie. What they saw was probably the fake body parts [TAPA] had.” Probably? Like, maybe I murdered some in the alley behind the store, chopped them into 99 pieces, and then stuffed them in the same bag as the props?
Luckily, the cops weren’t aggressively dumb,{{2}} and took her at her word. They were gone by the time I got back.
Although, note to serial killers: apparently, if you tell the LAPD you’re working on a film, they’ll let you go.
[[1]]That’s a deep cut.[[1]]
[[2]]This time.[[2]]
