No, I did not make up that headline. That’s the real deal, word for word.
Shockingly, this did not happen in Florida.
Let’s break it down, journalism-style.
WHO: A female inmate, 34 years old.
WHAT: An escape from custody while she was getting booked on a drug possession charge.
She was later found hiding in the hot tub of a senior center, still wearing her orange jumpsuit from the jail.
WHEN: December 19, 2018. It took police hours to find her after the escape.
WHERE: Waverly, Ohio.
WHY: That’s the mystery.
Hiding in a senior center could make sense. It’s not like the cops have to show up there every Friday night to break up bar fights. But to make that plan work, you’d have to change your clothes and pretend to be a visitor, or a janitor, that sort of thing. You don’t hang out in the hot tub, where you’ll (a) get spotted by all kinds of people who (b) maybe want to use that hot tub and (c) will definitely call the cops when they see your orange jail gear.
And for those who don’t get it, the headline is a great riff on the movie HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, brought to you by the same geniuses now doing COBRA KAI.
However, this story is only the latest entry into the proud historical record of Criminals Who Stink at Hiding.
Florida Man takes the top spot in my book, with a man running from the police late at night getting the bright idea that he’ll hide in a pond. True, the 5-0 didn’t find him. That’s only because an alligator did first.
There are hundreds of other stories of criminals hiding in stupid places: in a dumpster, a manure lagoon, the lion cage at a zoo–you name it, some idiot has done it.
So I salute you, Hot Tub Crime Machine Woman–you get an F for achieving your goal but an A+ for style.
The Red Pen of Doom 