I should probably preface this post by explaining that I’ve never actually seen either of the Purge movies. But that’s not going to stop me from opining at length on why they don’t make any sense!

The premise, from what I can glean from the commercial where the woman tells us to remember how much good the Purge does, is that for one night a year, all crime is legal. It’s sort of like spring cleaning, only instead of getting rid of old newspapers, you’re getting rid of hobos.

My question: is insurance fraud legal during the Purge? If no one thought to write up a contingency about insurance fraud, what’s going to stop me from taking out really rich insurance policies on a bunch of homeless people the day before the Purge?

“Just out of curiosity,” I’d ask the agent on the phone as we talk about the premium. “If the policy holder should happen to die, how would you pay the beneficiary? Would you have to send a check by bonded courier or could you do an electronic transfer? Because if it’s an electronic transfer situation, that’d be great. I just put a deposit down on a boat.”

What about embezzlement?

I’m not entirely sure how embezzlement works, but it seems like it’d be perfectly legal to steal a bunch of money from some heartless corporation, like a much more effective Erin Brockovich.

The problem is you’d wake up the following morning, head to the store to buy some oatmeal and there’s no food because BNSF ran out of money and the guy who stole all of it doesn’t much care about railroads. Instead, he’s hell-bent on using his fortune to build a much-needed museum of puppetry (which I just googled, and it turns out already exists. Good news for BNSF).

Still, embezzlement might be a good option for me. I don’t think I’m violent enough to kill a bunch of hobos, and I know I’m not patient enough to sit on hold while the insurance company processes my claim.

I know what you’re thinking:

“But Alan, you beautiful man-hunk, can’t someone just re-embezzle the money during the next year’s Purge?”

I’m way ahead of you. Again, I’m not sure how embezzlement or computers work, but on Purge Eve, I’d head to the bank and withdraw all my dirty, dirty Purge money. I’d get there early. There’d probably be a line of people doing the same thing after they heard about this criminal mastermind who stole a bunch of money using nothing more than a computer and probably a modem or something.

Also, you know how the bank hands you money in an envelope? We’re talking millions of dollars, here. That would never fit in an envelope. I could probably get a cashier’s check, but the smart move is to have them stuff the cash into a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it.

Then I bury the sack under the house. Try hacking into that network, street toughs!

The day after the Purge, while everyone else is at the store returning all the crime they didn’t want, I’ll head to the bank and deposit the money.

On the way home, I frown thoughtfully at all the corpses lining the street. Briefly, I feel bad for the dead and their families, but then I get angry at how long it takes the city to clean up all these bodies.

“It’s like, by the time they get all these corpses off the street, it’s time for the Purge again!” I say to myself, shaking my head.

Then I use the money to start a business, Scaia’s Purge-Kleen (“Bring out your dead, not your wallet!”), and grease enough palms on the city council to get a fat contract to remove all the bodies and whatever other stuff winds up in the street during the Purge, like old couches, for instance.

Make millions more and run for office, eventually running for president and buying air time for commercials where I wear a blue, collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up and say, “I literally cleaned up the streets.” Then I snap my fingers and the two corpses at my feet turn into kids passing a baseball, the corpses on the curb next to me turn into an older couple walking down the street confidently and the pile of bodies behind me turns into a tree in front of a bistro.

Then I pressure Congress to pass a bill outlawing financial crimes during the Purge. I say we need to protect investors and call the measure “Scaia’s Law” after this guy who once embezzled millions of dollars during the Purge.