Before I start, free Sci Fi and Fantasy books. On with today's fun:

In my last email, I had a throw away joke about adjusting If I Had $1000000 for inflation. I thought I’d maybe give it a try. With a 23-year-old song (27 if you count when they wrote it), there has been lots of people who have done the math on whether or not one million dollars would actually buy all the stuff mentioned in the song. I feel all of them miss a fun opportunity in the calculation.

Most of them settle for a replica of John Merrick’s remains, citing that there isn’t really a way to buy the bones. However, because they are being held at the Royal London Hospital, I propose that there is a way to “buy” John Merrick’s remains, and that my friends, is a well-planned heist, worthy of a Ocean’s 11 movie.  

However, since I don’t know how much a heist would cost, I did a little research and found that most heists in Grand Theft Auto 5 costs between $25,000-$100,000. Completely within the $1000000 budget of the heist. However, video games are not like real life, so for the house, the chesterfield, craft dinner, I’m going to go as cheap as possible.

They didn’t specify where the house was located. Most assume Toronto because that’s where the band is from, which blows most of the budget on the first purchase. I’m gonna go with a ruin in Italy which I can get for $20k Euros, $30kish American. No one said the house had to be renovated or even livable. The tree fort in the yard can be built with the ruins so $0. Okay fine maybe old stones aren’t the best for trees. So maybe $500 on materials with as much repurposing as possible. So, $35500.

Let’s be generous for a faux green dress, faux fur coat, Kraft dinner, mini-fridge, Dijon Ketchup, those could all be easily purchased for less than $1000 if I’m going to thrift/budget stores. Probably even less, but let’s make it $36.5k Since I don’t have to buy the Chesterfield because the “or” in the song, I’ll use a rock in the ruin for the ottoman or make one with leftover treehouse materials.

So, I’m left with k-car, llama or emu, monkey, limousine, and art (Picasso or Garfunkel) all of which can be used in a heist, so it’ll come from the nearly million dollars we have left for the heist. First off, any good heist deserves a getaway vehicle, and since we are buying a k-car, might as well use it to get away. Now I always thought it was a k-car, but turns out there is a class of car in Japan called a Kei car that is pronounced like the letter k. They are reliable and the smallest class of street legal vehicle. So, I’m guessing Kei car is the car in question. Which I can get used for $10k bringing my total to $46.5k.

Now, Kei cars aren’t fast, topping out at 80 mph or less (130 kmh), so there won’t be any driving on the walls of sewers Italian Job style with our tiny car, but it doesn’t need to go fast. In England, the speed limit tops at 112 kmh (about 70 mph). Obeying traffic laws and speed limits will help the getaway not get pulled over by chance, so a Kei is good as any, and reliability is good to have here. I don’t imagine what the conversation would be like to explain to the tow truck driver why you have John Merrick’s remains in your back seat.

Now that we have our car. We need a crew. Unfortunately, this is a little hard to research. I figured an art thief would be the best person to get all them crazy elephant bones because breaking into a hospital would probably be the same as a museum. When I attempt to find “the price of an art thief” and other variations of the search, I get an AI reminding me that art theft is illegal and has serious consequences. Which if I had the intelligence of a twig and searched on the internet for how to plan a heist and then actually committing the heist, I would be leaving law enforcement officials an invitation to my door (even in incognito mode). So, I would like to take the time to explain this post in no way condones the stealing of John Merrick’s remains or any theft and is purely a satirical fiction exercise of how to spend a million dollars in the Barenaked Ladies song. So, I don’t need AI telling me it’s illegal. I know that, but I just need more information. However, no matter how I phrased the search, the AI wasn’t going to give up, between sales pages of “The Art Thief” and other generally useless information, I gave up on my search to find the price of hiring an art thief.

Which is sad for writers, as I’m sure many writers of crime novels probably have a search history that would make a person think they are up to no good, when the reality is that writers just want accuracy in their work. I remember hearing a story about how search results were used to track down a guy through food orders who also happened to be researching how to dispose of a body. When they got to his door, it turned out he was a writer on a very popular crime TV show. I can’t imagine what AI is doing to those writers now. But I digress, if you want a fiction (both movie and book) about the dangers of preventing crime before they happen, check out the Minority Report by Philip K Dick.

Since there really wasn’t any information I could find about hiring an art thief, and also not having the time or resources to do some hardcore investigative journalism and interview art thieves in prison (I’m a fiction writer, we mostly make shit up). I decided to base my hiring price of the thief based on the value of the heists in the past. Some of the higher profile art thefts in history were estimated between 500 million and 2 billion dollars. Which even if I spend the entire 1 million on the best thief in the world that would earn them 0.2% of value of a heist they could do on their own.

And you don’t ever one to skimp on hired thug wages. I mean they know about the whole thing and could throw you under the bus for a plea deal, or they can blackmail you. The point is that if you hire someone to do your dirty work, the pay must reflect A. not just stealing the item for themselves or B. make them feel so cheated that they rat you out or get revenge on you.

0.2% is not going to attract the best talent in the world, so maybe some pretty good talent. Which I think I have found. In January of 2006, Sripuranthan Chola Idols were stolen from a temple and were sold to the National Gallery of Australia for $5.1 million. Luckily the Australians knew it was stolen and handed them back to India. But if I were to offer the thief 9.8% of 5.1 million dollars that’s a cool 500k. I think that’s enough for the person to keep their yap shut.

So, we got the Sripuranthan thief, the getaway car, and we still need a llama or an emu and monkey, limousine, and art (Picasso or Garfunkel) and have only spent $546.5k so far. Now, I know what you are thinking, the person you hired is an art thief, so steal the Picasso. That would mean another heist since John Merrick’s remains are at the Royal London Hospital which I doubt would have any Picassos, maybe a replica but I don’t want to bank on it. So, I may as well hire Art Garfunkel as my distraction.

Okay so Art is in his 80’s at the time of writing this, but that doesn’t stop him. His last album was 2024, so imagine $100-$200k or since it’s at a hospital, I bet I can convince him it’s for charity (we’ve already established the lack of morals in the scheme so why not just make it worse). So, let’s go with $200k to play a couple songs, maybe the Sound of Silence for ironic crossfades while the heist goes on.

We can set up Mr. Garfunkel on the helipad on top. Get all the eyes looking up, while my art thief is sneaking out of a parking garage in a Kei car. Now here’s the brilliant part of the plan. You thought the Garfunkel concert was the distraction, but it’s really the llama, emu, and monkey. We can unleash them into the crowd while Mr. Garfunkel is playing. Exotic animals can be rented from the film industry for about $10,000 for primates. I’m sure the emu and llama are less expensive, but we got some cash left, so let’s throw $50k at the animal handler to have an “accident” and let the animals go free for a while.

You know a llama, monkey, and emu terrorizing (or most likely being terrorized) at a folk concert is immediately pull out your cellphones newsworthy. For while all the world is distracted, John Merrick’s remains could be snuck out the back. Now. It’s just getting them into Italy, which is accessible by car. So maybe Kei car swaps at a parking garage to keep the authorities off the trail, and maybe even some driving around in sewers on the walls (we couldn’t resist) and a few bribes, paying people to look the other way and there goes the rest of the million dollars.

And if Interpol needs to find us, we’ll be in a ruin in Italy enjoying Kraft dinner while gazing upon John Merrick’s actual remains. But don’t worry, I saved enough for limousine trip to the store where we probably are going to buy a tent and camp stove, because we were crunching on hard noodles before. But that’s post the song and like any great heist, screw long term planning!

Books to Consider

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Read the Golden Assault Rifle and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction today!

In the near future, asteroid prospectors—rock hoppers—risk everything mining the belt.

Read Blowups Happen! today!

Eighteen-year-old Becca is a regular kid. At least on the outside.

Read Becca Princess of Sona today!

Two empires. One planet. Rule the planet. Rule the universe.

Read Specter today!

In this tale of space opera and cosmic adventure, the Ambassador of a mysterious and ancient family must forge a path through chaos to overcome the terrible enemies that desire humanity’s destruction.

Read The Survivors today!