Sometimes you just don’t want to go to work.
Maybe you suck it up and go anyway — or maybe you call in sick. Perhaps you make up a fake emergency, such as a burst pipe in your house or a death in your family.
Or maybe you tie yourself up and throw yourself on the side of the road to fake your own kidnapping.
That’s what a man did to get out of a hump-day shift at work on Wednesday, according to police and court records in the town of Coolidge, Ariz.
Brandon Soules, 19, has since pleaded guilty to reporting false information to law enforcement.
Soules beat himself up, tied his hands with his own belt, stuck a bandana in his mouth and threw himself on the side of the road to fake the kidnapping on Feb. 10, according to local police. He also fabricated a complex story about his rich father, a trove of buried cash in the desert and two masked kidnappers who didn’t care that he would miss his shift at an auto shop in town.
“He informed us that he was hit in the head and stuffed in a car in front of his home,” Cmdr. Mark Tercero of the Coolidge Police Department told local station KNXV. “But when we located video surveillance in front of his home, we were able to see no such thing.”
Police say the man also fabricated text-message chains to back up his story.
He ultimately confessed to staging the whole thing when police confronted him a week after the incident.
“After we showed him all the information, he admitted that he fabricated this story because he didn’t want to go to work,” Tercero said.
Tereco says the incident was a major waste of police, firefighter and paramedic resources.
He also highlighted it to the public so that Soules’ tall tale would not frighten others.
“Our community is still safe,” he said. “There are not two masked men running around kidnapping people.”
The New York Times was not able to determine if Soules has a lawyer.
Soules was booked at the police department and released with a court date.
He’ll also likely be off work for some time, as police say he was fired from his job after his kidnapping hoax came to light.