These days when you turn on the television or go to the movies you are treated to amazing feats of spymanship, escape, and cunning in adverse situations. Alias' Agent Bristow (both of them) found ingenious new ways to escape from captivity every week. On Prison Break the guy bent on breaking his brother out had an elaborate coded tattoo inked onto his body with the secrets of his plan embedded within. MI:3 just came out and I haven't seen it, but I'm sure Ethan Hunt displayed spontaneous escape ingenuity throughout. And what about Jason Bourne and his exploits? You get the idea. But I remember simpler times, like 1982, when Annie escaped from Miss Hannigan's orphanage by hiding in a big laundry hamper and was transferred into a truck that took her to an unsecured location. The nice laundry man let her out, she met Sandy the dog, and we've been singing 'Tommorrow' ever since.Well, in reality, Annie's escape plan seems to be all you really need. You don't need cunning, strength, super intelligence, training, or compartmentalizing. A murderer serving three life sentences in a Louisiana prison escaped in April by hiding "in a large pile of repaired mailbags, which was taken to a nearby unguarded warehouse" (article). It seems the elaborate plans are simply not necessary - escape from a penitentiary just requires cribbing from Annie.
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