The Classic Hawaii Con Job! - Time Out #302

Now summer has officially arrived on the calendar, I feel it's time we laughed a little. I am going to share a true story that happened many years ago on far off Oahu island, Hawaii. The exact spot of the humorous event was the Waikiki section of Honolulu, and the time was the summer,1967.

I had convinced my dear high school/college friend, Jim, to escape with me 2,500 miles west of coastal California, spending the entire summer in our Aloha State, Hawaii. I told him we could "easily (?)" secure jobs working along the famous beach area there, living on island time from Memorial Day until Labor Day. I proposed we would then fly back to Our Town, and begin our junior years at Oklahoma State. He totally bought the verbal hype I was selling, and we flew to Honolulu from Oklahoma City, with a change of jet aircraft in Los Angeles.

After arrival in Hawaii's tropical paradise, we stayed in a cheap motel near Waikiki Beach for a few days, and went to the beautiful beach long enough, early on, for Jim to get a severe sunburn! Also, almost immediately, we secured part-time jobs, working about 25 hours/week at the Kiamana Beach Hotel as evening waiters. Progressing upward from the cut-rate beach motel, we rented a nice one-bedroom, furnished apartment, since we now had jobs, and a steady source of income. Our first home was a relatively new, high-rise apartment structure, and our rented unit was on the 6th floor, facing south toward Waikiki Beach.

It was about this first apartment (we occupied 3 different ones in 3 months; not by our choice!), I relate this week's "chuckle" story.

Because we worked 5 pm-10 pm 5 days per week, we stayed up very late (usually 3 am), and partied a great deal into the Hawaiian nights. With those regular parties, we regularly exceeded our allowable apartment noise level. After several warnings by the apartment resident manager, he requested we vacate our apartment; aka, we were evicted!

Now comes the meat and potatoes of my tale, dear readers in Our Town and far beyond.

When the apartment manager came to inspect our apartment in order to return our $250 (MUCH money then) damage deposit, he discovered Jim had apparently permanently stained his individual bed mattress, by spilling something on it. The stain was very apparent to anyone who merely took the time to examine it. Over the next few minutes, Jim convinced the manager Jim could remove the stain, because Jim had had a great deal of previous experience (?) in removing stains/blemishes from furniture upholstery! WHAT was he saying, I thought in my head??? The manager said he would allow Jim 2 hours to attempt his "cure" on the mattress, but absolutely not longer. When 2 hours had elapsed, he emphatically said we would have to vacate the premises, without our $250 damage deposit!

Now for the unbelievable part of this yarn.

We had made friends with a couple of college girls on the 7th floor, just above our apartment. After the resident manager left our place about 1 pm, we walked out on our lanai (Hawaiian for porch), and yelled upstairs to the college coeds. Jim told them his plan was for them to lower one of their mattresses down over their lanai's metal rail to us below, and we would transfer our stained mattress up to their place. After we got their unstained one cleared by the resident manager, and we had our $250 damage deposit returned, we would exchange both mattresses once again, returning them back to their original locations. The ladies readily agreed to Jim's bold and crazy scheme.

So, in broad daylight, with the apartment complex parking lot about 50-feet below for any/all people to clearly witness the activity, the switch and switch back, successfully took place. The inspecting resident manager could not believe Jim had "fixed" his stained mattress, but he did fully refund our $250 damage deposit. We then quickly departed the scene of the mattress switch, never to return!

Morale of this story, dear folks: magic DOES happen! However, Disney's Tinkerbell pixie dust was not involved in our true, colorful story, long, long ago, in a far away place.