I Discovered The Dark Secret My Dad Has Been Hiding In The Basement

hi everybody my name is ileana my dad used to work at a company that made printers he lost his job when the company went bankrupt he had been working there since graduating from college he spent 17 years there it was the only job he ever had he applied for similar jobs but nobody would hire him he ended up getting depressed he sat around in the living room all day watching tv his relationship with my mom deteriorated he started fighting all the time the atmosphere at home was really bad when my dad lost his job he got severance pay when that money ran out my parents started to have trouble making ends meet my mom has two brothers i'd only met her younger brother maybe half a dozen times i didn't even know what he did for a living just that he was really well off when my mom became desperate she called him and asked him to help find my dad a job he said have him come to my office tomorrow i have just the job for him when she said this over dinner my dad said i will have to go but i don't trust him he never helps anyone unless there's something in it for himself they never told us what job my uncle offered my dad but my dad started leaving home early in the morning and coming back late at night i asked my mom has dad started working she said he will soon but he's going to work from home right now he's making preparations for that don't tell anyone about it i didn't understand why my mom said that what kind of secret work was my dad going to be doing that weekend something funny happened my mom said to my brother and me do not come out of your room tonight no matter what happens i asked what if we have to use the bathroom we can't come out even then she gave me a serious look and said ileana this is really important you are not to leave your room i didn't want to go to sleep that night so i could figure out what was happening i pressed my ear to the floor i heard a lot of footsteps i could hear people talking but i couldn't make out anything they were saying i stayed up until 3 30 in the morning the sounds from downstairs had petered out i couldn't stay awake anymore so i fell asleep why were there so many people around that night who were they did they bring something i had so many questions but i couldn't ask my parents because i didn't want them to find out i stayed up and eavesdropped even though my dad was working from home we were barely seeing him my mom said that he was working nights and sleeping during the day but something was off we didn't know what his job was i tried asking my mom she wouldn't give me a straight answer she just said it's something similar to his old job i couldn't ask my dad because even though he was working again he still looked depressed he used to joke around all the time he loved making us laugh now he had become a completely different man and i missed my old dad very much the only positive thing was that we were doing better financially around that time the school year ended and summer vacation began one morning my brother said to me can you get my bike out of the basement i said why don't you do it yourself why are you asking me he blushed he was embarrassed the basement is so dark i know there's nothing to be scared of but i'm still scared please don't mock me i knew he couldn't help it because i am still terrified of clowns okay let's go and save your bike from the monsters in the basement i said he said hey i told you not to mock me i said okay okay i was just kidding and started walking he followed me to get into the basement we first had to go outside the entrance was at the back of the house i couldn't remember the last time i went down there i didn't think there was anything important there other than my brother's bike anyway that's why i was sure my parents hadn't gone down there in a long time i was so surprised when we got to the door because there was a keypad lock on the wall next to it i pushed the door it didn't budge normally this door is never locked but now it was and here was this keypad lock we needed a passcode to enter our basement now this was the craziest thing i'd ever seen in my life when i touched one of the buttons the screen said enter the four digit passcode i asked my brother what do you think the passcode is i have no idea he answered i decided to try some numbers first i entered my brother's birth year didn't work then i tried mine that didn't work either how about moms when i typed in her birth year i set off a really loud alarm of course we panicked apparently the alarm was set to go off after three unsuccessful attempts a few moments later the basement door opened there were two men whom i'd never seen before did they work with my dad since my dad was asleep at the moment what were these guys doing there by themselves they were relieved to see us the one with the beard asked are you mr bradford's kids we nodded my brother said um i got my bike down in the basement we just wanted to pick it up he said stay right there i'll grab it for you that's how we found out there was something strange going on in our basement i told my brother wait here for your bike i'm going to talk to mom my mom was out when she came back i told her what happened i should have told you the basement is your father's office now those people you saw are two of his colleagues she said but what are they doing in the basement i asked mom said i told you they are working don't go back there just as she said that i noticed the ring on her finger i said mom is that new is that a diamond my mom involuntarily pulled her hand away and hid it behind her back she said no it's not a real diamond it's fake then she quickly got up and walked away i didn't think that was a fake diamond if it were fake she wouldn't be so nervous she would show it to me like it was no big deal so now we had the money to buy such expensive jewelry now i was even more curious about my father's new job but i had no way of finding out what was going on meanwhile our family was getting richer my parents got themselves expensive suvs all the furniture in the house was replaced a new phone a tablet a computer my mom got us whatever we wanted we were seriously rich now but for some reason we were still living in the same old house it was really not very nice why did we not move out did it have something to do with what my dad was doing in the basement the job i still knew nothing about early one morning the truth came out i finally found out what was being done in the basement it was a huge shock for all of us that day our life turned upside down i said earlier that my dad worked for a company manufacturing printers for 17 years he was an expert in printing technologies do you know what my uncle offered my dad since he was aware of his expertise printing counterfeit money yes unfortunately my dad was printing fake banknotes in our basement the men my brother and i had met were in charge of distributing the fake money around the country in order not to attract attention they were printing twenty dollar bills which no one checks my uncle was already making a living from illegal activities he wanted to make even more money by going into the counterfeiting business using my dad's expertise and that's exactly what happened both my dad and him made a lot of money from it the police raided our basement and caught my dad and the guys he worked with red-handed my brother came to my room of course we couldn't go out we found out what happened afterwards it's really interesting how this all came about after picking up his bike my brother found two 20 bills stuck to each other outside the basement the men probably dropped them as they were carrying out the counterfeit money my brother didn't realize the money was fake and used it to buy ice cream the ice cream cellar became suspicious looking at the bills he noticed that the ink on one of them was still wet that's how we figured out they were fake and asked my brother where he got them then he called the cops the police surveilled our house for a while after the raid that night my dad my uncle and 15 more people were arrested they're all in jail right now there's both a fine and jail time for this kind of crime they seized everything from our house too we're staying with my grandparents our life was completely upended no matter how desperate my dad was he never should have gone into something like this i'm so mad at my mom too because she let it happen now our family is broken i know that they did this for us as much as they did it for themselves but i still don't think i can forgive them you

Channel: That's My Story

Views: 594,238

Rating: 4.8762889 out of 5

Keywords: personal stories, story, experience, animation, short film, stories, animated stories, real life, family, parents, father, mother

Id: _VtdSm0ewUA

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020