Tulsa, Oklahoma: Tulsa police have a great sense of humor when they have that much backup.
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
"Both hands out the window son. Ok, now slowly show me some ID"
Needless to say it wasn't exactly how we had pictured the afternoon would go.
Sure, we had cased the bank carefully, we decided that the best way to take it would be to park one car on the other side of the fence behind the bank right along the freeway. That would be our get-away vehicle. We would have to get a second car, the one we would arrive in, to put in front of the bank as a decoy. It should look mean, maybe a van or something, no windows, something that would keep the cops busy for a while so that we could sneak out the back way and hit the freeway flying.
Well, it was fun to talk about anyway, since we had nothing else to do while sitting in the parking lot waiting for Billie Rae to show up with the car we wanted to buy.
Thursday we left Phoenix @ 2:20 in the afternoon. Our flight took us to Dallas, where during a three hour layover we proceeded to get quite wasted.
There was a TGI-Fridays in the airport, and we had lots of their mixed drinks - long island ice teas I believe... it is all still blurry. Then we wandered to our terminal, and since we were a bit early we stopped in the bar there and had double shots of wild-turkey and waited for them to call our flight.
The Plane.
There were 14 passengers it was a Brazilian air turbo prop. I did shoot some nice video there on the plane though, night vision, and some cool shots out the window. Dan fell asleep on the shoulder of the guy sitting next to him... Well, sleep, that would put it mildly. Dan passed out. This is also where I acquired the short stewardess demo seat belt.
Tulsa Airport.
We couldn't remember the name of our hotel. Seems that the Wild Turkey had numbed completely that part of our brains. So we called Betty, who told us the name. Then we started asking directions to the hotel, or if there was a shuttle to the hotel. Nobody really knew where it was, and when we called the shuttle service they said it would be $22.00 --
AVIS.
We rented a car. There was a nice girl with crocheted hair, no really, I commented that she had cool hair, and she said it was crocheted. Even let me feel it. It was thread, or yarn or something. Looked interesting for sure. She was cool though, got us a nice little rental for a good price. Pontiac Sunfire. CD player, etc.. Quite fast. BTW: Never buy a used rental car, it might be one that I have driven. More on that later.
HOTEL.
We found the hotel. This was no easy task. As it turns out, Tulsa has a river the runs through the middle of it and the streets don't all cross it, keep the same number system on either side, or go in straight lines. After an hour or two of searching though we did find it, unloaded out stuff, drank some crown royal, and headed out on the town. We swung through the Taco Bell and asked where the nearest bar was, and headed off to find it.
Friday.
Called the hotel office, told them we would be checking out late. We were busy watching the video from the previous weekends offroad trip, and besides, we had nowhere else to be. We drank some more crown royal.
Breakfast.
On Route 66th, also known as 11th street through Tulsa, we had seen the previous evening something called the "Corner Cafe" -- it looked good so we went there for breakfast (at like noon) -- IT was good. Big cinnamon rolls, ham, eggs, grits, etc... We are sitting @ the table eating and listening to the locals do the local thing. We went in search of answers and ended up talking to and video taping the owner, Rondo, who was from Syria. He was fun and talked to us on tape for some time.
Locating the Bank.
The deal was that we were to meet Billie Rae @ the bank between 3:30 and 4:00 to see the car, and transfer the papers on the loan. So we set off to find the bank. Tulsa is a poorly laid out city and it took us quite a while to find the bank. But it was around 3:00 when we first drove thought the parking lot. We decided to go find a place to buy more video tapes.
The Dollar Store.
We spotted a dollar store, seemed like a good place to get tapes. It wasn't. But they did have some Halloween stuff on sale, including a really cool Hockey mask. I bought that. The clerk was chatty and somehow got on the topic of what we were doing in Tulsa, and what we were planning to do with a hockey mask. Well, my smart ass reply, was, you know, rob some banks, then head on out of town with the loot.
Back @ the Bank.
We pulled back into the bank parking lot @ about 3:30. We backed into a spot facing the bank. It wasn't a big bank by any means. It was about the size of a single wide trailer. Brick. And it had a fairly cute female guard out front. I turned on the video camera and set it on the dash, it had a great view of her. She kept glancing at us.
Dan decided it was time to make a move. So he walked into the bank, went directly to the bathroom, did his business, and walked back out without talking to anyone. Got a good look around inside the bank though.
The guard started to look at us hard. We of course weren't really caring too much @ this point, so we went about our business, made some phone calls, got some stuff out of the trunk that we needed to buy the car. Changed video tapes, etc.
The guard was really getting fidgety now. We decided that we had made her pretty uncomfortable and that we should drive off to look for something to eat.
The Convenience store.
We pulled out of the bank lot, and low and behold, just up the hill from the bank (about 100 yards) was a git-n-go. We pulled into the first available parking spot, which just happened to overlook the bank parking lot quite well. We got some snacks, and formulated a complete plan with lots of hand gestures etc, on how we would take the bank, we also shot some additional video from this vantage point. The guard didn't spot us at first, but when she did she started talking into her mic on her shoulder and messing with the dials on a radio on her belt. This we know was not so good. Then a bank employee came out, apparently they had been worrying about us as well. They both glanced sideways at us for a while, and we decided that it was time to leave.
Driving off.
Well, we needed to wait for Billie Rae. But we didn't want to traumatize the little bank guard anymore. So we drove down the road a couple miles, then drove past the bank, and since Billie Rae wasn't there we kept going and turned around again, and drove past the bank again.
Back @ the Bank.
We decided to return to the lot and wait. We pulled in and nearly instantly were surrounded by police. Hands on their guns, big flashlights rapping on the side of the car,
"Both hands out the window son. Ok, now slowly show me some ID"
We did, and we explained our loitering around the bank, what kind of car we were buying, how much we intend to pay, etc. Then we were told that we should visit Oral Roberts University while in Tulsa. That it was much nicer that the area we were in right now. Then Billie Rae showed up with the car and they asked him some questions as well. They waited around though, not leaving as long as we were there.
The Car.
The car sucked. It had been abused and we decided against buying it. Then we had to explain to the Tulsa Police why we weren't buying the car, and were again told that we should definitely take the time to go to Oral Robert University, and maybe go to the Fair.
Needless to say it wasn't exactly how we had pictured the afternoon would go.
Sure, we had cased the bank carefully, we decided that the best way to take it would be to park one car on the other side of the fence behind the bank right along the freeway. That would be our get-away vehicle. We would have to get a second car, the one we would arrive in, to put in front of the bank as a decoy. It should look mean, maybe a van or something, no windows, something that would keep the cops busy for a while so that we could sneak out the back way and hit the freeway flying.
Well, it was fun to talk about anyway, since we had nothing else to do while sitting in the parking lot waiting for Billie Rae to show up with the car we wanted to buy.
Now lets go back in time.
Thursday we left Phoenix @ 2:20 in the afternoon. Our flight took us to Dallas, where during a three hour layover we proceeded to get quite wasted.
There was a TGI-Fridays in the airport, and we had lots of their mixed drinks - long island ice teas I believe... it is all still blurry. Then we wandered to our terminal, and since we were a bit early we stopped in the bar there and had double shots of wild-turkey and waited for them to call our flight.
The Plane.
There were 14 passengers it was a Brazilian air turbo prop. I did shoot some nice video there on the plane though, night vision, and some cool shots out the window. Dan fell asleep on the shoulder of the guy sitting next to him... Well, sleep, that would put it mildly. Dan passed out. This is also where I acquired the short stewardess demo seat belt.
Tulsa Airport.
We couldn't remember the name of our hotel. Seems that the Wild Turkey had numbed completely that part of our brains. So we called Betty, who told us the name. Then we started asking directions to the hotel, or if there was a shuttle to the hotel. Nobody really knew where it was, and when we called the shuttle service they said it would be $22.00 --
AVIS.
We rented a car. There was a nice girl with crocheted hair, no really, I commented that she had cool hair, and she said it was crocheted. Even let me feel it. It was thread, or yarn or something. Looked interesting for sure. She was cool though, got us a nice little rental for a good price. Pontiac Sunfire. CD player, etc.. Quite fast. BTW: Never buy a used rental car, it might be one that I have driven. More on that later.
HOTEL.
We found the hotel. This was no easy task. As it turns out, Tulsa has a river the runs through the middle of it and the streets don't all cross it, keep the same number system on either side, or go in straight lines. After an hour or two of searching though we did find it, unloaded out stuff, drank some crown royal, and headed out on the town. We swung through the Taco Bell and asked where the nearest bar was, and headed off to find it.
Friday.
Called the hotel office, told them we would be checking out late. We were busy watching the video from the previous weekends offroad trip, and besides, we had nowhere else to be. We drank some more crown royal.
Breakfast.
On Route 66th, also known as 11th street through Tulsa, we had seen the previous evening something called the "Corner Cafe" -- it looked good so we went there for breakfast (at like noon) -- IT was good. Big cinnamon rolls, ham, eggs, grits, etc... We are sitting @ the table eating and listening to the locals do the local thing. We went in search of answers and ended up talking to and video taping the owner, Rondo, who was from Syria. He was fun and talked to us on tape for some time.
Locating the Bank.
The deal was that we were to meet Billie Rae @ the bank between 3:30 and 4:00 to see the car, and transfer the papers on the loan. So we set off to find the bank. Tulsa is a poorly laid out city and it took us quite a while to find the bank. But it was around 3:00 when we first drove thought the parking lot. We decided to go find a place to buy more video tapes.
The Dollar Store.
We spotted a dollar store, seemed like a good place to get tapes. It wasn't. But they did have some Halloween stuff on sale, including a really cool Hockey mask. I bought that. The clerk was chatty and somehow got on the topic of what we were doing in Tulsa, and what we were planning to do with a hockey mask. Well, my smart ass reply, was, you know, rob some banks, then head on out of town with the loot.
Back @ the Bank.
We pulled back into the bank parking lot @ about 3:30. We backed into a spot facing the bank. It wasn't a big bank by any means. It was about the size of a single wide trailer. Brick. And it had a fairly cute female guard out front. I turned on the video camera and set it on the dash, it had a great view of her. She kept glancing at us.
Dan decided it was time to make a move. So he walked into the bank, went directly to the bathroom, did his business, and walked back out without talking to anyone. Got a good look around inside the bank though.
The guard started to look at us hard. We of course weren't really caring too much @ this point, so we went about our business, made some phone calls, got some stuff out of the trunk that we needed to buy the car. Changed video tapes, etc.
The guard was really getting fidgety now. We decided that we had made her pretty uncomfortable and that we should drive off to look for something to eat.
The Convenience store.
We pulled out of the bank lot, and low and behold, just up the hill from the bank (about 100 yards) was a git-n-go. We pulled into the first available parking spot, which just happened to overlook the bank parking lot quite well. We got some snacks, and formulated a complete plan with lots of hand gestures etc, on how we would take the bank, we also shot some additional video from this vantage point. The guard didn't spot us at first, but when she did she started talking into her mic on her shoulder and messing with the dials on a radio on her belt. This we know was not so good. Then a bank employee came out, apparently they had been worrying about us as well. They both glanced sideways at us for a while, and we decided that it was time to leave.
Driving off.
Well, we needed to wait for Billie Rae. But we didn't want to traumatize the little bank guard anymore. So we drove down the road a couple miles, then drove past the bank, and since Billie Rae wasn't there we kept going and turned around again, and drove past the bank again.
Back @ the Bank.
We decided to return to the lot and wait. We pulled in and nearly instantly were surrounded by police. Hands on their guns, big flashlights rapping on the side of the car,
"Both hands out the window son. Ok, now slowly show me some ID"
We did, and we explained our loitering around the bank, what kind of car we were buying, how much we intend to pay, etc. Then we were told that we should visit Oral Roberts University while in Tulsa. That it was much nicer that the area we were in right now. Then Billie Rae showed up with the car and they asked him some questions as well. They waited around though, not leaving as long as we were there.
The Car.
The car sucked. It had been abused and we decided against buying it. Then we had to explain to the Tulsa Police why we weren't buying the car, and were again told that we should definitely take the time to go to Oral Robert University, and maybe go to the Fair.
