[spankie]

Hawley: That's understandable, and I realize that I've gotten used to looking at them as two halves of a very rotten piece of fruit because I've been present for a lot of their nearly identical schemes and scams. Zeta is definitely the more sneaky of the two, and since he has access to greater resources has yet to find himself in a situation that requires stiffing anyone.

Zeta is even worse than Patty because Patty has the ability to recognize that he's done wrong when he's not hungry for a way to get funds offshore. Zeta only ever speaks of his misdeeds with unabashed pride. He cheated his way through college. He's lied to sportsbooks for extra perks. He's badgered anyone who's mentioned depositing offshore in his presence unrelentingly until they agreed to deposit where he wanted in exchange for a token payoff.

Most grievously, he heard Bobby one night lamenting the fact that his parents had to get involved to stop him from gambling and losing everything he makes, and without hesitation convinced Bobby to start squirreling away cash without their knowledge and betting with "ZetaSports dot com" via Paypal. Everything I witnessed made it appear those transfers were solely one-way, and when anyone tried to plead with him to let Bobby's parents manage the situation, he'd insist that he was simply a better businessman than the rest of us for capitalizing on what he fondly referred to as a gravy train.

This went on for months while Bobby racked up debt to cover these losses on a CC he opened without his parents' knowledge, and then Patty decided he needed a piece of that action. Those two would pat each other on the back every time they dug Bobby's hole deeper until it became so hideous to watch they were told to take their cons elsewhere. That's when Bobby himself said it didn't matter what we said, he'd gamble away his money to them in private. We were at a loss for what to do until Spankie finally stood up and said this ugly story needed to be told.

Sure, we watched some ugly shit go down and did nothing for awhile, but when you run into a situation so bizarre as a sheep that begs to be fleeced every single day by people he calls his closest friends, it takes a little while to figure out what the best response really is.