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The Drive Home: How to be a Haida Gwaii Hustler

“These are just a few of the fun, easy ways to destroy the lives of honest people.”
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Anyone can be a hustler if they’ve got the nose for it. (Drew Mokris/Flickr)

By Chris Williams

Warning: This column could blow your mind, causing bits to sail across the room and land in someone’s Froot Loops. So be careful!

I am often confronted by grifters and charlatans trying to hustle me for money. They saunter up with such transparent pitches as: “Are you going to pay for that magazine?” and “No, the chocolate bars aren’t free, you have to pay for them.”

Usually I just run away or cry really hard, opening the floodgates of intolerance and letting tears of ignorance moisten my cheeks of ineptitude. But sometimes, I get taken for a ride on the streetcar of self-indulgence down Avarice Avenue. A little part of me gets bitter.

(Usually it’s my elbow. I know that sounds weird, but that’s the way it is: I have bitter elbows.)

Even with all the pain, suffering and financial doom, I still consider hustling a highly entertaining experience. If you want a new summer pastime, it might just be your game. You could join other hustling groups like “The Government” or “Teenagers” to begin new, meaningful relationships while learning all the latest techniques and reading all fantastic hustler magazines. (Wait… skip that last part.)

Conning people for money is not just mean, it’s incredibly gratifying and hilarious — unless you plan on doing it to me. It’s often referred to as the sport of kings, largely because of its close ties to the ruling class. But it is not a sport to be taken lightly. One must ease one’s way into it, like one eases oneself into a piping hot bath or a Spandex onesie.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Set up a phoney road-work crew. People required: two

Get a hand-held stop sign and a hi-vis vest. Stop traffic randomly on the highway. While traffic is stopped, have your friend come along and sell people overpriced sodas. Once all sodas are sold, let traffic continue on while you and your friend run like heck into the forest, never to be seen again. Hilarity and high profits ensue!

2. Open up a false restaurant. People required: three to six

Build a false restaurant on the edge of a government wharf out of plywood and nostalgia. Invite people to your restaurant. Explain to them that they have to pre-pay because that’s how all the big cities are doing it now. Take their money. Watch as they go through the restaurant door and into the ocean, never to be seen again. Hilarious, profitable and tidy!

3. Impersonate an ATM machine. People required: 14

Go down to your local arts and crafts dealer and get the supplies needed to dress yourself up like an ATM machine. Have 13 friends line up and “pretend” to use your mouth like the slot on an ATM machine. People not in on the scam will assume you are just an ordinary ATM machine. When they come over to try to draw money from you, have your other 13 friends steal their cars! Ha ha! Now run like the dickens!

4. (My personal favourite.) Let people know that you are the government. Tell them that they must pay you half of everything they make. Take their money and travel the world attending useless conferences that do nothing but provide great hors d’oeuvres and gift baskets. Run for re-election in four years. Gets them every time!

These are just a few of the fun, easy ways to destroy the lives of honest people. Feel free to come up with your own shenanigans and send them to me by way of this paper. And remember, if no one loses, then it’s not really fun!