ACTUALLY FROM THE L.A. TIMES

"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burn Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital.

Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

"I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in," he explained.

"As usual, Kiki shouted "Armageddon", my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him." At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next.

"The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out of the tube, igniting Mr Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball."

Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.

O.K., here's the top ten things that scare me the most in reading this story:

(10) "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum..." OUCH!!!!!

(09) "So i peered into the tube..." Aaaaaahhhhhh!!! I'm sorry, but that's like looking through a telescope into hell. I'd rather use binoculars to stare at the sun.

(08) That poor gerbil (who obviously suffers from low self-esteem) being shot out of a guy's anus like Rocky the Flying Squirrel on Rocky & Bullwinkle.

(07) Suffering a broken nose from a gerbil being launched out of someone's anus. I'm just guessing, but I seriously doubt said gerbil was springtime fresh after his little journey into Kiki's "tunnel of love".

(06) People walking around with these volcanic-like pockets of gas in their rectums.

(05) People who do this kind of thing and then admit what they were doing when taken to the emergency room. Sorry, but I think I would of made up a story about a gang of roving, pyromaniacs, anal sex fiends breaking into my house and sodomizing me with charcoal lighter before I admitted the truth. Call me old fashion, but I just can't imagine looking at a doctor and saying "Well Doc it's like this. See we have this gerbil named Raggot and we took this cardboard tube....."

(04) "First and second degree burns to the anus". Wouldn't this make the burning itch and discomfort of hemmoroids a welcome relief? How does one ever take a healthy poop after something like this? And the smell of burning anus must in the top five most horrible scents on the face of God's green earth.

(03) People named "Kiki" which obviously a Polynesion word for "Idiotic men who insert rodents up their butts."

(02) What kind of hospital would hold a press conference on this?

(01) This happened in Salt Lake City. What kind of people are those Mormons anyways? I'm starting to get a whole new image of the Osmond Family.

- Authors unknown