Amusingly, I came back to my office one afternoon to find my administrative assistant in a tizzy. The police had called looking for me. I returned the call.
Officer Obie: This is officer Obie of the Berkeley Heights police department.
Me: What can I do for you officer?
Officer Obie: Did you order a spool of wire from the BerkTek Wire and Cable company.
Me: Quite possibly. I order lots of such wire. I'm responsible for all networking on the seven campuses of the state university system.
Officer Obie: And what do you do with the spools when you're done with them?
Me: Well we put them out on our loading dock and often the students will take them to recycle them into dorm room furniture. Why?
Officer Obie: Son, we found a spool with your name on it in the middle of our town.
-- now it begins to dawn on me. Despite Berkeley Heights being about 40 minutes from my office, it is actually where one of my contractors has his office.
-- my office mate has been listening to this and is about rolling on the floor laughing. What I didn't say was:
Me: I can not tell a lie. I drove over to your town to throw that wire spool away.
-- but what I really did was
Me: I think you might want to talk to a Mr. Tom Jones, from Network Installations that handles much of my work. I rattle off a phone number.
Officer Obie: Did you say 988... realizing that was the exchange for Berkeley Heights. It begins to dawn on him he's got the wrong guy.
Turns out that the contractor had asked their landlord if they could store some stuff (to include my spent wire spools) behind their building and the landlord told him it was OK. Turns out that the land back there wasn't owned by the landlord and the proper owner had called the police about the "illegal dumping." Of course, the only "evidence" was a spool with my name and address at Rutgers on it.