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That primal urge for cash we all feel makes many of us (especially millennials) do a lot of dumb things—looking at you humiliated call centre employees. However, most of us probably have never pushed it as far as a (presumably broke) student in Kingston did this month.According to a Kingston Police news release, a 24-year-old man from Kingston decided to kidnap himself in an attempt to try and get his parents to give him some of that sweet, sweet cheddar.The man, who has not been named as of yet, texted his parents that he was taken and demanded a large sum of cashola for his safe return. Now, on June 14, instead of his parents telling the student that they had “a very particular set of skills” or, you know, paying up, they decided to be reasonable and contact the police.The police went to what they called a “Kingston post-secondary institution”—only Queen's University, Lawrence College, and Royal Military College of Canada are in the town—and searched for the student. While at the school they were unable to find him, which kinda plays into the realism of the kidnapping.But the cops didn’t leave it at that, and shortly thereafter, their investigation led them to a local hotel where they found the student on his lonesome and OK—which, it must be said, is the opposite of being kidnapped.Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox.Police then arrested the man and charged him with public mischief.Now, I get it, I have a shitload of student loan debt and sometimes I don’t know how to deal with it. It’s a source of all-consuming anxiety. A debt that, if you think about it too hard, will cripple your brain and you’ll just end up staring at a wall for hours.That said, while I do get it, I don’t recommend kidnapping yourself. With a maximum fine of $5,000, and a possible six month jail sentence, a conviction might actually be worse than working a call centre.Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.
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