Some Creeps Never Change... And Some Get Worse!

Last week I read the article on Castanet about a missing Merritt woman. Something about her boyfriend's mug looked vaguely familiar, but I quickly brushed it off and thought nothing more of it.

Well, this morning I read the article about how the missing Merritt woman was found (thank goodness!) and then it hit me. Robert Bishop. Holy crap! That's BOBBY Bishop! I knew that friggin' loser!! Well, I didn't actually know him... he worked with one of my girlfriends back in high school, and she invited him to hang out with us on a few occasions. He was a total nut job then, and apparently he's even more of a nut job now!

Wow...

So let me tell you the story of Bobby Bishop... at least as I know it.

A friend of mine worked at a truck stop ("The Big Stop", as everyone called it) in high school. One day a new busboy was hired on... Robert (Bobby) Bishop. Bobby was a bullshitter of enormous proportions! Anyone who spent more than two minutes talking to the guy could see that. I like to think that deep down my girlfriend knew that too (or at least she certainly figured it out eventually...) But at 18, she was perhaps a bit naive to all the attention and b.s. he was throwing her way. Like most con-artists (not that I've met many, but Bobby certainly fits the profile), he spoke with absolute confidence. And if you ever dared question the authenticity of his stories, he'd put on a total air of condescension. My thoughts are, if you're an insecure teenager -- and really, who wasn't insecure as a teenager? --  you're probably gonna find that confidence very attractive. You might even feel more a little important yourself when you're around someone who had the balls to talk-the-talk like that.

Now, I can't remember all the dirty details, but Jode, I know your mind is like a steel trap! So please feel free to jump in and correct me or add to this story if you happen to remember anything I don't...

What I do remember is that Bobby told our friend that even though he worked as a busboy, he was actually from an incredibly wealthy American family. His parents were millionaires, and had houses all over the world. Lord knows what his excuse was to explain why his family was living in Pembroke?! As for his busboy employment excuse, I believe he said something to the effect that his folks were planning on buying the Big Stop for him manage, so he was just there more or less undercover to see how the business was being run before his parents made their final decision.

I wish I could remember more of the stories he told (cue Jodie... if you remember anything), but like everyone else, I tended to zone out whenever the blowhard began speaking. He just bragged incessantly and his stories were always SOO over the top! (As if his so-called family history wasn't already an indication of that.) Perhaps he was taking a page out of Hitler's book,"The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it." Except that none of us believed him... besides our one friend -- or at least she did for a little while anyway. And maybe you can't blame her? He shared the sorts of tall tales that any young girl from a small town would want to believe, filled with money, celebrity encounters, world travels, and more. Besides, if his folks were to indeed purchase the Big Stop for him, then it wouldn't hurt to make nice with your future boss.

While I don't remember specifics, I do have a very clear memory of Bobby coming to a party at our friend Cassandra's place, and boasting some outlandish story about all his close n' personal celebrity friends. Half the room cleared out because they'd heard enough of his nonsense, and those of us who stayed were totally laughing our heads off and kept yelling, "Bullshit! Bull! Shit!" Our friend's boyfriend (btw, I should mention that she wasn't actually dating this dope, as she was seeing someone else at the time...) insisted that he prove this famous friendship, so Bobby said he'd call this celebrity up. But then he couldn't get ahold of them... of course.

Anyhow, because I can't remember many other Bobby stories, I'll just skip ahead to the part where he left town. So yeah, what our friend didn't know (which I believe I learned from you, Jodie, since April's parents owned Irvings) was that he had asked his employer for an emergency advance on his next pay cheque right before he skipped town, screwing them over.

A couple weeks later, our friend received a call.  Apparently he left to take over his father's company (or some sort of big opportunity like that) in New York City. He told her that he was calling her from a fancy party that he was attending with other rich and famous big wigs. (Which was no doubt just some bar...) I seem to recall that he wanted her to move to New York with him, and he told her that he had just bought her a diamond tennis bracelet at Tiffany's and would be sending it in the mail that week. (But it must've got lost, because it never arrived. Gosh, I sure hope he had insurance!) Her call was cut short when he got spaghetti sauce on his ten thousand dollar pair of pants and had to wash it off.

Believe me, I was callin' him on his big time b.s. when she shared the story with me. And a few weeks later when the Tiffany bracelet never arrived, our friend admitted that she kinda knew he was full of shit too. But in her defense, like I said above, when you're a teenager and someone is showering you with all kinds of affection (even if you do have a boyfriend), and they're wowing you with all these incredible too-good-to-be-true stories, well... it's probably not hard to convince yourself to believe them. I'm just glad our friend didn't drop outta high school and follow him to New York. Fortunately, she was way too smart for that!  If she had, she might've ended up like this poor woman from Merritt.

Unfortunately, it was too late for our friend to change her favourite quote in the high school year book, "The only things which man has to himself which can never be taken away are his thoughts, his feelings and an ever-lasting dream." - Robert Bishop.

Something tells me that Robert was quoting someone else when he shared that little slice o' wisdom with her. Oh well, at least he has his thoughts, his feelings and his ever-lasting dream to keep him company in jail.

Wow...