Some friends of mine had the entire family visiting for the weekend, and of course, that was the weekend that the sanitary line running through their front yard collapses.
I had stopped by to see their daughter. I roll up at about 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, and there's some poor guy in the front yard with a John Deere backhoe, digging up the sanitary line to replace it, digging a huge trench from the house to the street.
So, I acted like I was a city inspector. Come to find out, he had no permits, no nothing. He was trying to see how fast that he could replace 100 feet of sanitary line, with no one from the city noticing. I drove up in my pickup, grabbed a hard hat off of the back seat, get out, and started walking around and "sizing up" the scene.
Of course, he's up in the cab, watching me while he's clearly violating city code. Not only did he not have a permit, he didn't have a licensed plumber on site. At this point, he's about to start wetting his pants.
After I look around for about two minutes, he finally stops digging, gets out of the cab, and walks up to me. I started the conversation with "The neighbors called". He looks at me (I'm about 25 at the time) and says "You're awful young, aren't you?". I responded by looking at my watch... "Let's see... 4pm on a Saturday afternoon... you actually think they're going to call my boss, and send HIM out here to see what's going on?"
And I keep looking down in the trench, examining what he's doing. And then he starts talking non-stop, with all sorts of excuses... "They're good friends... in an bad bind.... all sorts of family in town for the weekend.... the old Orangeburg pipe just collapsed... you know what happens when that lousy excuse for pipe fails.... everything backed up into the house... already tried to clean the line out... couldn't even flush a toilet.... there was nothing else they could do..."
So, after he was done rambling and pleading his case, I said "No permit.. no licensed plumber, right?" He responded. "No... I don't."
About that time, my friend comes out the front door, hollers my name, and the gig was up. That poor guy had sweat out about 5 gallons in less than 5 minutes. Up until that point, he thought that he was thoroughly busted.
He was so relieved to be "off the hook", that he didn't even take it out on me...