"While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving *right now*, she would be punished. To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, 'If you don't let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!'" The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing! I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me were screams of laughter"
-Amy Richardson; Stafford,Virginia
______________________________________________________________
"It was the day before my eighteenth birthday. I was living at home, but my parents had gone out for the evening, so I invited my girlfriend over for a romantic night alone. "As we lay in bed after making love, we heard the telephone ring downstairs. I suggested to my girlfriend that I give her a piggyback ride to the phone. Since we didn't want to miss the call, we didn't have time to get dressed. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, the lights suddenly came on and a whole crowd of people yelled, 'SURPRISE!' My entire family - aunts, uncles, Grandparents, cousins and all my friends were standing there! My girlfriend and I were frozen in a state of shock and embarrassment for what seemed like an eternity. "Since then, no one in my family has planned a surprise party again."
-Tim Cahill; Poughkeepsie, New York
_____________________________________________________________
One of the funniest "most-embarrassing-moment" stories I've come
upon in a long time was about a lady who picked up several items at a discount
store. When she finally got up to the checker, she learned that one of
her items had no price tag. Imagine her embarrassment when the checker
got on the intercom and boomed out for all the store to hear: "PRICE CHECK
ON LANE THIRTEEN, TAMPAX, SUPERSIZE." That was bad enough, but somebody
at the rear of the store apparently misunderstood the word "tampax" for
"THUMBTACKS." In a business-like tone, a voice boomed back over the intercom:
"DO YOU WANT THE KIND YOU PUSH IN WITH YOUR THUMB OR THE KIND YOU POUND
IN WITH A HAMMER?"
Back to top
INNER SKELETON
A 63-year-old widow was admitted to hospital in Recife, Brazil, suffering
abdominal pains. X-rays showed that she was carrying a 20-inch
long skeleton of a fetus which she conceived a decade earlier. It
had become lodged outside the womb and was never expelled from her body.
FEMALE SOFA
A 500-lb woman from Illinois was examined in hospital. During
the examination, an asthma inhaler fell from under her armpit, a dime was
found under one of her breasts, and a remote control was found lodged between
the folds of her vulva.
OUCH!
A couple hobbled into a Washington emergency room covered in bloody
restaurant towels. The man had his around his waist, and the woman
had hers around her head. They eventually explained to doctors that
they had gone out that evening for a romantic dinner. Overcome with
passion, the woman crept under the table to administer oral sex to the
man. While in the act, she had an epileptic fit, which caused her to clamp
down on the man's member and wrench it from side to side. In agony
and desperation, the man grabbed a fork and stabbed her in the head until
she let go.
BABY CHICKEN
A 50-year-old woman was brought into a New York emergency room complaining
of abdominal pains. During an examination, doctors found that the
woman's labia were pinned together with old safety pins. Further
inside, they found the dismembered body of a chicken. The woman explained
that she inserted the chicken pieces, convinced that they would grow into
a baby.
SEX EDUCATION
A Californian doctor examining a young woman with abdominal pains asked
her if she was sexually active. She said that she wasn't. A
later examination showed that she was pregnant. Asked why she said
that she was not sexually active, the woman replied
"I'm not, I just lie there."
When asked if she knew who the father was, with a puzzled look she
replied
"No. Who?"
BLIND DRUNK
A drunk staggered into a Pennsylvania ER complaining of severe pain
while trying to remove his contact lenses. He said that they would
come out halfway, but they always popped back in. A nurse tried to
help using a suction pump, but without success. Finally, a doctor
examined him and discovered that the man did not have his contact lenses
in at all. He had been trying to rip out the membrane of his cornea.
GROWING SEASON
An old woman in a North Carolina ER complained of green vines growing
from her vagina. Investigation revealed a large potato trapped in
her womb. The woman then suddenly remembered that she had inserted it two
weeks previously, because she thought that her uterus was falling out.
PRICKLY PAIR
In Michigan, a man came into the ER with lacerations to his penis.
He complained that his wife had "a rat in her pussy" and it bit him during
sex. After an examination of his wife, if was reveal that she had
a surgical needle left inside her after a recent hysterectomy.
LAST STAND
A Cambridge man hobbled into casualty complaining of a permanent erection.
He admitted to doctors that while on holiday in Cuba, he frequented many
brothels, and in one he was given some erectile cream to keep him hard.
He was told to use it sparingly. However, since he was having so
much fun, he kept using more and more. By the time he came to casualty,
all the blood vessels in his penis were swollen and his testicles had ballooned
in size. Doctors could do nothing except prescribe painkillers, and told
him that it would return to flaccidity in a few days. They also told
him to enjoy his erection while it lasted, because it was going to be his
last.
JUICY LUCY
In Kentucky, a woman complained of a purple discharge from her vagina.
She thought it might have something to do with the diaphragm that her doctor
had recently given her.
"I followed all the instructions to the letter," she told her doctor,
"and used it with the jelly."
When asked which kind of jelly she had used, she replied,
"Grape."
BRUSH AFTER MEALS
A very unhygienic patient was being treated by two nurses for a burst
vein in his stomach. While changing the dressing, one of the nurses
screamed. They saw maggots crawling down the man's chest. They had
been breeding between his teeth, and smelling the open wound, decided to
feed further down his body.
PET SHOP BOYS
In Salt Lake City, two men came into the ER. One had "partial
thickness burns to the natal cleft." The other had a singed moustache
and a broken nose. Investigating doctors found a live gerbil in the
first man's colon. The pair explained that they tried to free it using
a cardboard cylinder. Unable to see, the second man lit a match to get
a better view, which resulted in substantial methane combustion.
CALL THE BUM SQUAD!
A World War II veteran came into a London clinic with a hemorrhoid
problem. One painful pile would often hang down from the man's anus and
he was in the habit of pushing it back up with an artillery shell.
On this occasion, the shell got stuck. Doctors were going to remove
it but the man told them the shell was still live. So the hospital called
in the army bomb disposal squad, who built a lead box around the man's
anus to defuse the shell before it could be removed.
KLINGONS AROUND URANUS
A 20-year-old man came to casualty with a stony mass in his rectum.
He said that he and his boyfriend were fooling around with concrete mix,
when his boyfriend had the idea of pouring the mix into his anus using
a funnel. The concrete then hardened, causing constipation and pain. Under
general anesthesia, a perfect concrete cast of the man's rectum was removed...
along with a stray Ping-Pong ball.
Back to top
Subject: Squad helps dog bite victim!
ACTUAL NEWSPAPER HEADLINES
* Grandmother of eight makes hole in one
* Deaf mute gets new hearing in killing
* Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers
* House passes gas tax onto senate
* Stiff opposition expected to casketless funeral
plan
* Two convicts evade noose, jury hung
* William Kelly was fed secretary
* Milk drinkers are turning to powder
* Safety experts say school bus passengers should
be belted
* Quarter of a million Chinese live on water
* Farmer bill dies in house
* Iraqi head seeks arms
Some become unintentionally suggestive:
* Queen Mary having bottom scraped
* Is there a ring of debris around Uranus?
* Prostitutes appeal to Pope
* Panda mating fails - veterinarian takes over
* NJ judge to rule on nude beach
* Child's stool great for use in garden
* Dr. Ruth to talk about sex with newspaper editors
* Soviet virgin lands short of goal again
* Organ festival ends in smashing climax
Grammar often botches other headlines:
* Eye drops off shelf
* Squad helps dog bite victim
* Dealers will hear car talk at noon
* Enraged cow injures farmer with ax
* Lawmen from Mexico barbecue guests
* Miners refuse to work after death
* Two Soviet ships collide - one dies
* Two sisters reunite after eighteen years at checkout
counter
Once in a while, a botched headline takes on a meaning
opposite from the one intended:
* Never withhold herpes from loved one
* Nicaragua sets goal to wipe out literacy
* Drunk drivers paid $1,000 in 1984
* Autos killing 110 a day, let's resolve to do better
Sometimes newspaper editors state the obvious:
* If strike isn't settled quickly it may last a
while
* War dims hope for peace
* Smokers are productive, but death cuts efficiency
* Cold wave linked to temperatures
* Child's death ruins couple's holiday
* Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn't
seen in years
* Man is fatally slain
* Something went wrong in jet crash, experts say
* Death causes loneliness, feeling of isolation
Back to top
Actual radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations, 10-10-95
Voice1: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Voice2: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to South to avoid a collision.
Voice1: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Voice2: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Voice1: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!
Voice2: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
Back to top
Rosaline A. Kelly lost her lawsuit against the former Spring Street
Tavern in Chippewa Falls, Wis., in December. She had had consensual,
exhibitionistic sex with two men in the bar three years ago and sued
because the bartender and manager failed to prevent her from acting
irresponsibly. [St. Paul Pioneer-Press, 12-17-95; Duluth News-Tribune-AP,
12-15-95]
A jury in Roanoke, Va., ruled for Ruby Campagna in November in
her lawsuit
against her apartment house manager Judy Woody. Campagna had grown
fond
of wrens that had built a nest on her patio, but Woody destroyed the
nest per
apartment house policy, stomping the birds while having "a malevolent
scowl
on her face," according to Campagna. The jury awarded her $135,000
for
post-traumatic stress disorder. [Washington Post, 12-1-95]
Heidi Beltzman, 29, filed a lawsuit in October against Davis Supermarket
in a
Pittsburgh, Pa., suburb for injuries she suffered while shopping. Beltzman
was in
a checkout line when a clerk in an adjacent lane attempted to put a
4-lb.
frozen chicken into a bag, but the fryer rolled off the counter and
hit Beltzman
on the foot, causing a bruise and swelling on the foot, which was still
bandaged
from surgery three months before. [Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, 10-26-95]
A court in Ontario ruled in favor of Carleton University football
punt returner
Rob Dunn in September in his lawsuit against University of Ottawa linebacker
Mike Lussler for a tackle that resulted in Dunn's broken jaw and concussion.
The judge found that Lussler, in a 1992 game, intended to tackle Dunn
with a
"complete disregard" for Dunn's safety. [Barrie Examiner-CP, 9-30-95]
In Albuquerque, N. Mex., in December, George Thomas Diesel and
his wife
filed a lawsuit against Foley's department store and the Levi Strauss
Company
over a defective pair of 501 jeans. According to Diesel, a rivet in
one of the fly
buttons was not completely fused, causing a piece of metal to protrude,
which
severely lacerated his penis the first time he put the jeans on. Diesel's
wife wants
money for the loss of her husband's services. [Albuquerque Journal,
12-22-95]
Bill Becker, 62, whose criminal career spans 30 years (and counting,
after a
federal judge in Baltimore turned down his latest bid, in August, to
overturn a
conviction for theft): "I robbed from the rich, kind of like Robin
Hood, except I
kept it." [Baltimore Sun, 8-6-95]
Morristown, N. J., Town Council candidate Donald Cresitello, lamenting
in
October his tight race with George E. Burke, despite the fact that
Burke had
just died: "Now he's liable to get the sympathy vote." [New York Times,
10-13-95]
An October decision of the U. S. Court of Appeals said the trial
court was right
to dismiss a slander lawsuit against the Franklin County (Ohio) Board
of
Elections chairman Terry Casey. Casey had called Federal Elections
Commission official Gary Greenhalgh a "lying asshole," but the Court
said that
phrase is merely rhetorical hyperbole. Casey could not have meant,
said the
Court, that someone's "anus was making an untruthful statement." [National
Law Journal, 10-30-95]
Back to top
(This top ten is from the original author.)
O.K., here's the top ten things that scared me the most in reading this story.
10) "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum..." Ouch!!!!!
9) "So I peered into the tube..." Aaaaaaahhhhhh. I'm
sorry, but that's
like looking through a telescope into hell. I'd rather use binoculars
to
stare at the sun.
8) That poor gerbil (who obviously suffers from low self-esteem)
being shot
out of the guy's anus like Rocky the Flying Squirrel on Rocky and Bullwinkle
7) 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."
6) People walking around with these volcanic like pockets of gas
in their
rectums.
5) 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 have
made up a story
about a gang of roving, pyromaniac, anal sex fiends breaking into my
house
and sodomizing me with a charcoal lighter before I admitted the truth.
Call me old fashioned, but I 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..."
4) "First and second degree burns to the anus." Wouldn't
this make the
burning itch and discomfort of hemorrhoids a welcome relief?
How does one
ever take a healthy poop after something like this? And
the smell of
burning anus must be in the top five most horrible scents on the face
of
God's green earth.
3) People named "Kiki" which is obviously a Polynesian word for
"Idiot
white men who insert rodents up their butts."
2) What kind of a hospital would hold a press conference on this?
1) This happened in Salt Lake City. What kind of people
are those Mormons?
I'm starting to get a whole new image of the Osmond family.
Back to top
Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously in 1989.
He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair
on a
murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in
prison.
In March 1989, sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and attempting
to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
On Jan. 1, 1997, Laurence Baker, also a convicted murderer once on
death row, but later serving a life sentence at the state prison in
Pittsburgh, Pa., was electrocuted by his homemade earphones as he
watched hissmall TV while sitting on his metal toilet.
NOMINEE #11 ["The Indianapolis Star", Wed., Dec. 4, 1996].
A Jay County man using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a
muzzleloader was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in
his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor,
19, died
in his parents' rural Dunkirk home about 11:30 p.m. Investigators said
Pryorwas cleaning a .54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been
firing
properly.
He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder
ignited.
NOMINEE #12 [AP, Mammoth Lakes]
A San Anselmo man died yesterday when he hit a lift tower at the
Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad,
authorities said. Matthew David Hubal, 22, was pronounced dead at
Centinela Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a.m.,
the Mono
County Sheriff's Department said. Hubal and his friends apparently
had hiked
up a ski run called Stump Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors
from the
lift towers, said Lieutenant Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police
Department. The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit
the
towers. The group apparently used the pads to slide down the ski
slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It was not clear if the tower
he
hit was one with its pad removed. "With the cold temperatures, the
snow
was probably pretty fast," said Donnelly.
NOMINEE #13 [Reuters, Warsaw, Poland, 5 May 1995]
A poacher electrocuting fish in a lake in central Poland fell into
the water and suffered the same fate as his quarry, police said
Thursday.
The 24-year-old man was one of four who went fishing with a cable,
one end of which they attached to a net and the other to a
high-voltage electricity supply line, the PAP news agency quoted a
police
official in >Wloclawek as saying. "For a while everything went according
to the poachers' plan and they had fish in their bags. But at a certain
moment the man holding the net tripped and fell into the water,"
the
agency said. The other poachers tried in vain to revive him, it said.
NOMINEE #14 [AP, St. Louis]
Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis
market.
When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog,
shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it.
Police
found him unconscious in front of the store: paramedics removed the
six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.
NOMINEE #15 [Unknown]
To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an
overhanging rock -- and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
NOMINEE 16 [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]
Blasting Cap Explodes in Man's Mouth at Party. A man at a party
popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an
explosion that blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, state police said
Wednesday.
Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during
a
party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D.Payne. `Another man had it
in
an aquarium, hooked to a battery, and was trying to explode it,'' Payne
said. ``It wouldn't go off and this guy said, `I'll show you how to
set it off. ``I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that,''
Payne said.
NOMINEE #17 [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1-1-93]
In December near Mineral Wells, Tex., three men who were attempting
to steal copper wire off live electrical lines for resale were
electrocuted.
Copper wiring is a valuable scrap metal in Texas but is usually
stolen from electric cables that are not being used.
----------------------------------------
Here are some people that may be future nominees/winners, but still
haven't made it to the "Big Leagues"
[UPI, Portland, OR]
Doctors at Portland's University Hospital said Wednesday an Oregon
man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive,
and will be released soon from the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25,
lost his
right eye last weekend during an initiation into a men's rafting club,
Mountain Men
A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered
Roberts' right eye. Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to
the left, a major blood vessel would have cut and Roberts would have
died
instantly.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in
Portland said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain, with
the
tip protruding at the rear of his skill, yet somehow managed to miss
all
major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had Robert tried to pull the
arrow out on his own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts
admitted afterwards he and his friends had been drinking that
afternoon.
Said Roberts, ``I feel so dumb about this.''
No charges have been filed but the Josephine County district
attorney's office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.
[VANCOUVER (CP)]
A man arguing over a love triangle accidently shot himself in the
groin, taking off his testicles and part of his penis. Police said
the
man was waving a .357 Magnum revolver around during the shouting match
early yesterday. But when he stuffed it back in his pants the gun went
off.
Police were called to the hospital after the man in his 20s was
brought in by friends. Charges are pending against the victim, who
is
expected to survive.
[Arkansas Democrat Gazette, July 25, 1996:]
Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left
the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early
Monday morning. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the
accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des
Arc and
Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition
at
Baptist Medical Center. The accident occurred as the two
men were
returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday
night, Poole's pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men
concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned
out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed
that
the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into
the fuse
box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting
the bullet, the
headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded
on east-bound toward the WhiteRiver bridge.
After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing
the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck
Poole n the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right
exiting the pavement and striking a tree.
Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but
will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained
a
broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God
we weren't on
that bridge when Thurston shot his nuts off or we might both be dead"
stated Wallis.
"I've been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world, but
this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit
how
this accident happened", said Snyder.
Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia, Poole's wife asked how
many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.
Back to top
* A German television station reported in January that as many as
50,000 former Nazi SS troopers might be receiving up to $600 a
month in German government pensions for World War II injuries
(including more than 3,000 who live in the U. S.)--while no
comparable government benefit exists for concentration camp
survivors. One example cited by the Washington Post was that
of
Heinz Barth, 80, an SS officer serving a life sentence for his part
in
a 1944 massacre in France, who gets $450 a month because he lost
a leg.
* Sexual Rejuvenations: The Hong Kong Standard newspaper
reported in February on the thriving business of a Dr. Liu, who
runs a virginity- (hymen-) restoration practice in Ghangzhou
province, China, charging about $500. "So many Hong Kong girls
come to us," she said. "They come just before their wedding.
They
don't want their husbands to know they had many boyfriends in the
past." And New Scientist magazine reported in January that the
German government, fearful of immune-system reactions and the
spread of "mad cow" disease, has banned the popular sheep-fetus
injections that men and women have been receiving to firm up
their buttocks.
POLICE BLOTTER
* Following in the footsteps of her completely unsuccessful
predecessors (Mr. Mellon E. Bank and Mr. Roadway V. Express,
reported in News of the Weird in 1989 and 1996, respectively),
Keisha Yvette Gregory was arrested in Durham, N. C., in March
and charged with theft of a check made out to the Tension
Envelope company, which she tried to pass off as a personal check
made out to Ms. Tension Nicole Envelope.
* Tacky, Tacky, Tacky: The trial of National Institutes of Health
police officer Bruce Blum ended in a hung jury in April on the
December 19 accusation (based on a surveillance videotape) that
he stole the current issue of People magazine from the NIH library
in Bethesda, Md. And Rhode Island state traffic court clerk-typist
Sharon James, 30, was fired in March for stealing a bag of potato
chips and some coins on the counter of a blind vendor in the traffic
court building.
* In March, in cases in San Diego, Calif., and Norfolk, Va.,
prosecutors came under fire for allegedly allowing witnesses in a
gang murder case and drug case, respectively, to have numerous
conjugal visits in government offices after business hours while in
custody as part of deals to coax their testimony.
.
* A 24-year-old, unidentified woman was arrested in Waukesha,
Wis., in April on suspicion of child abuse. Her son had
complained of a nose infection, which she said was caused by acid
from a wristwatch battery that he had put in his nose several
months earlier but which she had declined to help him remove until
the battery started leaking.
* Peter Lerat, 33, was arrested in Toronto, Ontario, in May and
charged with two robberies, one in a donut shop while he was
carrying a goose and one on the street while he had a raccoon.
In
each case he threatened to kill the animal unless someone gave him
money. He cleared $60 from a woman in the donut shop, but a
prospective victim in the second robbery ran to call police, and
Lerat was captured nearby.
* In January, West Palm Beach, Fla., police officer Ed Wagner
filed a lawsuit against the city for removing him from the SWAT
team following a complaint he made about a neck injury. The
injury occurred at an car-crash scene in 1993 when one of
Wagner's colleagues playfully grabbed his head and gave him a
noogie. And Franklin, Tenn., water and sewer director Eddie
Woodard was suspended for three days in February after he goosed
police chief Jackie Moore at a fire scene.
* Richard Lee Hamrick, 28, was picked up in Longview, Wash., in
February, suspected of being the guy who robbed a Safeway a few
minutes before. Not only was the robber wearing bikini briefs
on
his head, backward, with eye holes cut in the derriere, but,
according to the officers who had to book the evidence, they were
soiled.
CLICHES COME TO LIFE
* Life Imitates the Three Stooges: Julio Guaman, 31, landed in
a
tree, with a broken pelvis, after a five-story fall from his Queens,
N.Y., apartment in December. According to his wife, Julio had
lunged at her in a fight in order to push her out the window, but she
ducked, sending him out.
* Life Imitates Prison Movies: Joshua John Jaeger, 25, housed
the
Queen Street Mental Health Centre in Toronto in January, and
David Anderson, housed at the California Medical Facility in
Vacaville in April, became the latest inmates to escape by tying
bedsheets together and lowering themselves to the ground.
(Anderson even left a pillow-and-blankets dummy in his bed as a
decoy.)
* Marsha Watt, a 1990 graduate of Northwestern University
School of Law and formerly an associate at the prestigious
Winston & Strawn law firm in Chicago, had charges filed against
her in February by the Illinois Bar Association's discipline
committee over her most recent conviction for prostitution (i.e., the
kind involving sex, for which her published rate, according to a
personals ad, was roughly three times what the law firm billed for
her).
NO LONGER WEIRD
* Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which
now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from
circulation: (19) The person easing into the parking lot of the
driver's license office, either arriving for the exam or just
completing it, who accidentally crashes into the office's storefront,
as a woman did in Hillsboro, Ore., in May and a man did in
Barrie, Ontario, in March. And (20) the burglar attempting to
enter
an establishment from the roof via a vent pipe but who gets stuck
and must be rescued by the police, or, as with a 20-year-old man in
Dayton, Ohio, is December, who suffocates.
DANGEROUS ACTIVITIES
* Guns in the Reading Room: In April in Chandler, Ariz., Johnel
Trinidad, 18, sitting on the toilet inspecting a gun he planned to
buy from a friend, accidentally shot himself in the knee. Said
police Sgt. Matt Christensen, "Bathroom gun safety and gun safety
in general pretty much dovetail." It was Chandler's second such
shooting in a year. In July, Harold Hughes, 52, was on the toilet,
his gun on the counter and his pit bull lounging nearby, when the
dog became startled and knocked the gun to the floor, where it
fired a shot into Hughes's leg.
Back to top
A North Carolina man, having bought several expensive
cigars, insured them against... get this... fire. After he had
smoked them, he then decided that he had a claim against
the insurance company and filed. The insurance company
refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had
consumed the cigar normally. The man sued. The judge
stated that since the company had insured the cigars against
fire, they were obligated to pay. After the man accepted
payment for his claim, the insurance company then had
the man arrested . . . for arson.
Back to top
* The Federal Emergency Management Agency reported in May
that only 946 households out of more than 10,000 in Grand Forks,
N.D., were covered by flood insurance when the recent floods hit.
Four months earlier, FEMA had begun issuing numerous advisories
about imminent flood danger and spent $300,000 on a media
campaign about ominous snow-melting conditions. However, the
FEMA campaign convinced only 73 Grand Forks homeowners to
buy policies.
* The first copies of the European Union's 24-page user's manual
for boots recently hit the market in England, reported The Daily
Telegraph in May. The booklet comes with the shoes and advises
the consumer how to choose footwear, how to use and care for the
boots, and how to wear them safely. It also explains how to read
the EU-mandated boot comfort ratings, though it also advises,
"Each boot should be tried for fitting before use."
* Dueling Misjudgments: In April, expecting a $3 million gift
destined for Children's Zoo in Central Park from philanthropists
Edith and Henry Everett, the New York City Art Commission
nonetheless approved only a small donor-name plaque on one
entrance marker to the zoo, rather than the slightly larger plaque
requested by the Everetts. Consequently, the Everetts snatched
back their gift, jeopardizing the zoo's long-overdue renovation.
COMPELLING EXPLANATIONS
* One of the members of the Mug House players pub darts team in
Worcester, England, commenting in February on his team's 50-
match losing streak: "I think we all drink too much [during the
matches]. One regular feature [of our games] is to miss the board
completely."
* Fernando Magana-Rodriguez, 24, pleading not guilty to bigamy
in Kelowna, British Columbia, in January: "I'm Mexican.
I never
knew you could go to jail for marrying two women, or I never
would have done it."
* John H. Bergantini, a candidate for tax assessor in Exeter, R.I.,
commenting in March on his being sued by the town for $2,678 in
back property taxes: "My ability to write a check for a certain
amount of money has nothing to do with [my ability to judge] how
much a piece of property is worth."
* Rochester, N.Y., Assemblywoman Susan John, who is the chair
of the Assembly's Alcohol and Drug Abuse committee, upon her
guilty plea in March for driving while impaired: "This will give
me
additional insights into the problem of drinking and driving, and I
believe, will allow me to do my job even more effectively."
* Owatonna, Minn., elementary school principal Kevin A.
Thompson, 37, was charged in January with peeping into the
window of a home and was apprehended hiding under the deck of
another house. According to police, Thompson said he was merely
checking street addresses in connection with the redrawing of
school-bus pickup boundaries.
* Public television's "Frugal Gourmet," Jeff Smith, has denied that
he sexually molested any of the five men who have since January
filed complaints against him for having fondled them as boys.
One
of the men, Keith Thomas, who had worked for Smith in the 1970s
as part of a high school work-study program, said that at the time
he had shrugged off Smith's hugs and kisses as "weird, but [I
thought] maybe that's the way it is with people in the food
business."
LEAST COMPETENT PEOPLE
* According to the Berlingske Tidende newspaper of Copenhagen,
Denmark, in January, an unidentified man drove his car onto the ice
at the Augustenborg Fjord 120 miles to the south, but it broke
through. The man managed to escape in the shallow water, though,
and then minutes later attempted the crossing with a four-wheel
drive vehicle, with the same result. He next tried it with a
tractor
(same result), then with another tractor (same). It took rescuers
seven hours to pull the four vehicles out.
* Daniel Sutherland of Indiana, Pa., accidentally shot himself in the
mouth in February while he was blowing down the barrel of a gun
to see whether it was loaded. Said Sutherland, haltingly, to
a
reporter, "You know that hanging-down thing in the back of your
mouth [the uvula]? I lost mine."
* According to a police report in the Providence (R.I.) Journal-
Bulletin in February, a man wearing a flowered dress, swearing and
making obscene gestures, was subdued by police officers but only
after he had softened himself up by accidentally running smack into
a car and then a brick wall. At the police station, he tried
to escape
but wound up colliding with the wall in a stairwell.
* In Bozeman, Mont., in March, according to Gary Gerhardt, the
owner of County Lanes bowling alley, a man walked in, told the
cashier he had just gotten out of prison for having robbed County
Lanes several years before, and said he would like to look around
on top of the ceiling to see if he could find the wallet he had
dropped during that job. When Gerhardt ordered him to leave,
the
man just shrugged and walked away.
* Brothers Patrick and Daniel Worthing were charged in December
with attempted corporate espionage. Patrick was a supervisor
for a
cleaning contractor working for PPG Industries in a suburb of
Pittsburgh, Pa., and in a letter full of misspellings and grammatical
errors allegedly offered to sell many PPG corporate secrets to
competitor Owens Corning. According to the prosecutor, Patrick
had sent PPG's financial statements (actually "finacial" statements,
providing "intimant details" that would be "of intrest"), asked only
$1,000 for all the information Owens Corning could use, and had
given PPG's fax number for any return calls. At his first court
appearance, Patrick asked the magistrate, "If we, like, fully
cooperate with all the details, is there, like, a lesser sentence?"
EXTREMELY FORGETFUL PEOPLE
* Cleveland, Ohio, county clerk Gordana Giovinale was suspended
for 3 days in April as punishment for leaving $65,000 in taxes and
fee receipts in a bag in the restroom stall he was using. After
finishing his business, she apparently just forgot that she had been
headed to another office to drop off the money. And Mike
Shreckengost appeared in court in Somerset, Pa., in April to
reclaim the $20,000 that he had tossed onto the side of a road in
February 1996 as a trooper approached his stopped car. He drove
off without the money and made no inquiries about what happened
to it until he heard in August 1996 that the trooper was claiming the
money under a "finders-keepers" law.
CAPITAL OF BAD RELATIONSHIPS
* Carrollton, Ga.: In March, a sheriff's investigator learned
that
Jodi Denman Cecconi had elaborately faked the leukemia death of
her two-year-old daughter (hospital vigils, funeral arrangements,
grave-site selection, obituary in the newspaper, etc.) to win back
her estranged boyfriend Neal Casey, who bought onto the story for
a while before learning that the child was in good health. And
the
next month, Carrollton country-music radio station manager Amy
Bullington, 23, who was charged with shooting her boyfriend to
death, surrendered to police only after having aired her favorite
song "Has Anybody Seen Amy?"
Back to top
* In May, the Russian press reported that 76 top aviation officials
flying to the U. S. had declined to take the national airline Aeroflot
because of safety concerns, instead flying Finnair. And in March,
a
Stavropol Airlines passenger jet literally fell apart in the air because
of rust, and crashed, killing 50 and becoming the latest Russian
airline tragedy. And in May, courageous U. S. astronaut Michael
Foale took his turn on the aging Russian space station Mir, which
has been in orbit for 11 years despite a predicted life of three and
which just in 1997 alone has experienced a fire, a breakdown in the
main oxygen system, a partial power loss, and the overheating of
one of its air purification systems.
* In 1993 India Scott dated both Darryl Fletcher and Brandon
Ventimeglia when she lived in Detroit and moved in with Fletcher
in 1994 when she was about to give birth. Neither man knew about
the other, and she told each he was the father. For two years,
Scott
managed to juggle the men's visitation rights, but in March 1997
when she announced she was marrying another man and leaving the
area, both Fletcher and Ventimeglia separately filed for custody of
"his" son. Only then did Ventimeglia and Fletcher find out about
each other. They took blood tests to determine which was the
real
father of the boy they had caring for for more than two years, and
in May the blood test revealed that neither was.
* Connecticut Police Academy: Robert Jordan filed a lawsuit in
May against the New London, Conn., police department for illegal
discrimination, claiming he was rejected as an officer solely because
he scored too high on an intelligence test, which the department
claims is evidence that Jordan would get bored on the job and be a
bad officer. And an Associated Press report from New Haven, 50
miles away, revealed that new-recruit police classes include training
in the arts (watercolor drawing, ballet, etc.), which was the
brainchild of former police chief Nicholas Pastore, who himself
resigned in February after admitting that he had fathered a child
with a prostitute.
I'VE GOT MY RIGHTS!
* More than 200 students at Molalla (Ore.) High School petitioned
officials in May to overturn the school's mandatory-brassiere policy
after two girls were sent home for not wearing them. Protesters
complain that the dress code is not fairly enforced, in that more-
heavily endowed violators are more frequently punished than less-
endowed violators.
* The National Labor Relations Board ruled in December that
Caterpillar Inc. workers who were on strike from June 1994 to
December 1995 were entitled to be compensated for the popcorn,
sodas, ice cream, and other snacks that the company provided
workers who remained on the job during that time.
* In February, the student government at Oxford University in
England appointed a person to patrol the grounds and stop couples'
public displays of affection. In one place, petting was banned
from
the dining hall, and another facility was divided into heavy- and
light-petting-allowed zones. The government also banned sexual
intercourse in libraries between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. (although no
student leader claimed to have actual knowledge that it had ever
occurred). The actions were taken because some students who did
not have dates found the behaviors offensive.
* Two inmates serving life sentences at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola filed a lawsuit in February claiming officials
have denied them the chapel space and equipment necessary to
observe their religion of Satanism. Even though they allegedly
cannot practice faithfully, their credentials for the Satanic afterlife
seem substantial: One plaintiff is in for first-degree murder
and the
other for rape, robbery, and kidnapping.
NOT MY FAULT
* According to police in Mesa, Ariz., Jean K. Dooley opened fire
with a handgun in Valley Lutheran Hospital in 1995, intending to
kill her husband, who was a patient there. (She missed but
managed accidentally hit a nurse and a paramedic.) In January
1997, she filed a lawsuit against the hospital for negligently failing
to stop her from bringing the gun inside.
* In March, the New York Appellate Division of the Supreme
Court unanimously took away the $15 million award that a jury had
made to Jose Barretto, who is paralyzed from the waist down.
Barretto sued Richmond Hill High School in New York City for
not stopping him from horsing around before volleyball practice in
1988, when, with the coach momentarily out of the gym and
allegedly to show off for his friends, he ran toward the net from 30
feet away, dived over it, and landed on his head. Said Barretto,
"I
accept part of the blame, but what about the responsibility of the
teacher and the school?"
* Federico Perales, 52, was arrested in Fort Worth, Tex., in April
and charged with stabbing his wife to death in front of their two
teenage kids because he was angry that the three of them started
dinner before he arrived at the table. According to the Peraleses'
son, Perales's last words to his wife were, "You pushed me to the
limits. You did this to yourself."
CREME DE LA WEIRD
* In April, Mary Durante, the inheritor of a house in Newark, N. J.,
found 133 neatly stacked boxes upon her first visit to the attic, each
with the remains of a cat wrapped in newspapers that dated back to
1945. She was startled by the discovery but said she knew the
house once belonged to the late Newark Star-Ledger pet columnist,
William H. Hendrix.
* Sandra L. Archer, 35, was sentenced to two years in jail in April
in Omaha, Neb., for disorderly conduct and cruelty to animals after
videotapes surfaced of her having sex with her boyfriend (Mark W.
Williams, 36, who is awaiting trial) atop groups of dogs, including
sick ones, that had been obtained from local shelters.
* The Mainichi Daily News (Tokyo) reported in April that a 24-
year-old local man from Adachi-ku was arrested and charged with
assaulting a 17-year-old schoolgirl on her way home. According
to
police, the man rubbed saliva in the girl's hair as an expression of
anger because her socks were too loose around her ankles. Police
quoted him as saying, "When I saw those socks, I just went crazy."
* According to a recent Canadian documentary film, Troy
Hurtubise, a scrap-metal dealer from North Bay, Ontario, was so
disappointed at his 1984 first encounter with a grizzly bear that he
embarked on a 10-year, $100,000 project to build a safety suit that
would enable him to wrestle and defeat a grizzly. He has not
yet
found a bear to wrestle, but he has spent money so obsessively on
the suit that he recently had to file for bankruptcy.
WELL-PUT
* Michael Forgue, a Jackman, Maine, restauranteur, expressing
doubt in May that his neighbor James Darrow was guilty of the
murder for which he had been arrested and to which he had
allegedly claimed credit for: "They don't call [him] 'Big Jim
the
Liar' for nothing. You name it, he lied about it."
Back to top
* Ms. Dale Gray, 41, claimed in her sexual harassment lawsuit
against the University of Alabama that a female professor's having
lured her into an affair caused her severe emotional problems.
At
her trial in Tuscaloosa in May, Gray (who had her breasts
removed, takes testosterone, and now sports a beard "to hide the
little girl," she said) disclosed that she was married three times
to
men and once to a woman with whom she planned a "fantasy" child
(a faked pregnancy that she said was common among lesbians) that
she eventually "killed off," and had a five-year sexual relationship
with her mother.
* In March, armed with evidence that a drug dealer had been killed
with a single gunshot during a robbery by two men, Torrance,
Calif., district attorney Todd D. Rubenstein obtained separate jury
convictions of both men for firing the fatal shot. Both robbers'
guns
had fired, but one missed, and a conclusion as to which one could
not be drawn from ballistics tests. Rubenstein asserted confidently
to one jury that Stephen Edmond Davis, 19, shot the man, and just
as confidently to the other jury that it wasn't Davis, but rather John
Patrick Winkleman, 19.
* Correen Zahnzinger, 24, filed a lawsuit in Santa Ana, Calif., in
May against her boyfriend of three years (and husband of one year),
Ms. Valerie Inga, 29, who pretended the whole time to be a man.
("They did have a sexual relationship," said Zahnzinger's attorney,
"but I'm not allowed to say how it was perpetrated.") And two
weeks earlier in Arlington, Va., Margaret Hunter, 24, was awarded
$264,000 in her lawsuit for fraud against her ex-husband, Ms. Holly
Anne Groves, 26, who had posed as a man in their four-month
marriage in 1996.
THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
* According to the 1997 platform of the Natural Law Party (based
on teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) in Canada, released in
May, people should stop using the south and west entrances to their
homes because they are inharmonious and should instead use north
and east entrances. Furthermore, Canadians entering the U. S.
should do so from Niagara Falls, whose entrance (from the east) is
the only nonsouthward entrance in the country. The Party proposes
to eliminate the federal deficit by "eliminating problems" and to
create an "invincible" national defense through yogic flying (which
resembles hopping like a frog). The Party got 84,000 votes in
1993.
* In October, Jay Urdahl, an incumbent running for county
supervisor in Mason City, Iowa, was charged with criminal trespass
while out campaigning. According to homeowner Debbie Opheim,
Urdahl just walked right into her house to meet her without the
benefit of an invitation or a knock on the door. Said Opheim,
who
heard a "hello," "I ran down the stairs, and he was standing in my
living room." After Opheim ordered him out, she said, "He looked
at me like I was insane."
* In March, arguing for the legalization of holiday fireworks in
Arizona, state Rep. Richard Kyle denounced opponents who said
sparklers were dangerous: "I put them in my hair. I have
stuck
them in my clothes. They do not burn." (He lost.)
* In April, North Providence, R. I., Council member Charles A.
Lombardi was charged with misdemeanor vandalism--according to
police, the drive-by egging of a car owned by a relative of his
political opponent, Mayor Ralph Mollis. Said Lombardi, "This
is
politics in North Providence."
* In a March New York Times story on vote-buying in Dodge
County, Ga., a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State
tried to describe the depth of the problem: "We literally had people
who said they had no idea that selling your vote was illegal.
One
guy said, 'It's my vote, I can do what I want with it.'"
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
* In January, the U. S. Postal Service in Miami, Fla., issued
bulletins announcing a $25,000 reward for the return of something
stolen from a mail carrier, but refused to say what it was, referring
to it only as a "device." Said a postal inspector to a reporter,
"I
can't tell you what it is. I can't tell you what it's used for."
* Former Prestonburg, Ky., school board member Wood R.
Keesee, 59, filed a lawsuit in May against a female court clerk to
whom he had allegedly loaned money in 1996. Under the terms of
the $1,800 loan, according to Keesee, she was to have 18 sexual
encounters with him, but when she stopped after three, he filed the
lawsuit.
* One week apart in March, in Ardmore, Okla., and San Francisco,
Calif., schools disciplined female students who reported that they
were raped on campus. A 15-year-old girl had been briefly
suspended from Ardmore High for having sex at school despite the
fact that her clothes were soaked in blood, as was the locker room
area where she said the rape occurred. An 18-year-old woman was
threatened with eviction from San Francisco State University
housing because she had kept a hunting knife in her room, illegally,
which she used to chase off the alleged rapist.
* Among the recipients of the American Lung Association's
"Thumb's Up" motion-picture awards, presented at the time of the
Oscars in March to honor those films and characters who present
a
no-smoking image, was Woody Harrelson for his role in
discouraging his movie wife from smoking in "The People Vs.
Larry Flynt." However, in the movie, both Flynts are heavily
addicted to illegal drugs and seem to be indifferent to sharing
needles for injecting them.
* A leading TV news program in Bogota, Colombia, reported in
January that Jimmy Pacheco had been kidnapped for a month in the
city of Cucuta in a scheme to pry undisclosed concessions from
either friends or co-workers, but that to keep things low-key,
Pacheco was permitted to return home every night so as not to
alarm his family. The kidnappers would watch Pacheco's house
at
night and snatch him again in the morning as he left for work.
LEAST JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES
* In February, Avi Kostner, 52, pleaded guilty in Newark, N. J., to
the murders of his kids, aged 10 and 12, which he said he
committed because he feared his ex-wife would not raise them as
Jews. (In arguing successfully against the death penalty, Kostner's
lawyer continually referred to Kostner in front of the jury as merely
"less than perfect.") And in May, Harry Charles Moore was
executed in Oregon for the 1992 murders of his in-laws because he
was afraid they would persuade his ex-wife and infant daughter to
move to Las Vegas and possibly get involved in prostitution and
drugs.
DANGEROUS ACTIVITIES
* Smoking: In April, authorities on North Carolina's Figure Eight
island said they suspected the cause of the fire that destroyed the
vacation home of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company president
Andrew J. Schindler was a lighted cigarette butt. And after a
New
Year's Day domestic argument in Campinas, 60 miles north of Sao
Paulo, Brazil, Silas Leite da Silva was Bobbittized by his wife
because, among several reasons, according to police, he would not
stop smoking at home.
Back to top
"The government must crack down on this disgusting craze of
"Pumping"," a spokesman for the Nakhon Ratchasima hospital told
reporters. "If this perversion catches on, it will destroy the cream
of Thailand's manhood." He was speaking after the remains of 13
year-old Charnchai Puanmuangpak had been rushed into the hospital's
emergency room.
"Most 'Pumpers' use a standard bicycle pump," he explained, "inserting
the nozzle far up their rectum, giving themselves a rush of air,
creating a momentary high. This act is a sin against God."
Charnchai took it further still. He started using a two-cylinder foot
pump, but even that wasn't exciting enough for him, and he boasted
to
friends that he was going to try the compressed air hose at a nearby
gasoline station. They dared him to do it so, under cover of darkness,
he snuck in.
Not realizing how powerful the machine was, he inserted the tube deep
into his rectum, and placed a coin in the slot. As a result,
he died
virtually instantly, but passersby are still in shock. One woman
thought she was watching a twilight fireworks display, and started
clapping.
"We still haven't located all of him." say the police authorities.
"When that quantity of air interacted with the gas in his system, he
nearly exploded. It was like an atom bomb went off or something."
"Pumping is the devil's pastime, and we must all say no to Satan,"
Ratchasima concluded. "Inflate your tires by all means, but then hide
your bicycle pump where it cannot tempt you." Let's hear it for
Charnchai Puanmuangpak, the NEW 1997 undisputed Darwin Awards
recipient!
Back to top
Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas, Texas, was filming a movie in 1983 on the
dangers of low-level bridges when the truck he was standing on passed
under a low-level bridge... and killed him.
In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, New York, was laid out
in
her coffin, presumed dead from a heart attack. As mourners watched,
she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead from a heart attack.
A man hit by a car in New York in 1977 got up uninjured, but lay back
down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was
hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car rolled forward
and
crushed him to death.
Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out
the back door of the house, clambered over a nine foot wall, dropped
down, and found himself in the city prison.
In 1976 a 22-year-old Irishman named Bob Finnegan was crossing the
busy Falls Road in Belfast when he was struck by a taxi and flung over
its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in
the
road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter.
It too
drove on. As a knot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic
Irishman, a delivery van plowed into the crowd, leaving in its wake
three injured bystanders and an even more battered Bob Finnegan.
When
a fourth vehicle came along, the crowd scattered and only one person
was hit... Bob Finnegan. In the space of 5 minutes, Finnegan
suffered
a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg, and multiple abrasions.
Hospital officials, however, said he would recover.
While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti
came to a railway line just as the crossing gates were coming down.
While he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat, which the
farmer tethered to the crossing gate. A few moments later, a
horse
and cart drew up behind Falatti, followed in short order by a man in
a
sports car. When the train roared through the crossing, the horse
startled and bit Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be trifled
with,
Falatti responded by punching the horse in the nose. In consequence,
the horse's owner jumped down from his cart and began scuffling with
Falatti. The horse, which was not up to this sort of excitement,
backed away briskly, smashing the cart into the sports car. At
this,
the sports car driver leaped out of his car and joined the fray.
The
farmer came forward to try to pacify the three flailing men.
As he
did so, the crossing gates rose, strangling his goat. At last
report,
the insurance companies were still trying to sort out the claims.
Two West German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in
heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. They were going
in
opposite directions and each man was guiding his car at a snail's pace
near the centerline of the road. At the moment of impact, their
heads
were both out of the windows when their heads smacked together.
Both
men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren't
scratched.
Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife's incessant
nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an
elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself.
When
his wife came home and saw him, she fainted. Hearing the disturbance,
a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses,
seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she passed by Mr.
Fen,
her arms laden with booty, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked
the neighbor stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady
that
she had a heart attack and died. Mr. Fen was acquitted of
manslaughter and he and his wife were reconciled.
An unidentified English woman, according to the London Sunday Express,
was climbing into her bathtub one afternoon when she remembered she
had left some muffins in the oven. Naked, she dashed downstairs
and
was removing the muffins when she heard a knock at the door.
Thinking
it was the baker, and knowing he would come in and leave a loaf of
bread on the kitchen table if she didn't answer, the woman darted into
the broom cupboard. A few moments later, she heard the back door
open
and, to her eternal mortification, the sound of footsteps coming
toward the cupboard. It was the man from the gas company, come
to
read the meter. As he opened the cupboard, the woman stammered,
"Oh,
I was expecting the baker!" The gas man blinked, excused himself,
closed the cupboard and departed.
Back to top
Larry was a truck driver, but his lifelong dream was to fly. When
he
graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes
of becoming
a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him.
So when he
finally left the service, he had to satisfy himself with watching
others
fly the fighter jets that crisscrossed the skies over his backyard.
As
he sat there in his lawn chair, he dreamed about the magic of
flying.
Then one day, Larry had an idea. He went down to the local
Army-Navy
surplus store and bought forty-five weather balloons, and several
tanks
of helium. These were not your brightly colored party balloons,
these were
heavy-duty spheres measuring more than four feet across when
fully
inflated. Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach
the balloons to
his lawn chair, the kind you might have in your back yard.
He anchored
the chair to the bumper of his jeep, and inflated the balloons
with
helium.
Then he packed a few sandwiches and drinks, and a loaded BB gun,
figuring
he could pop a few balloons when it was time to return to earth.
His
preparations complete, Larry sat in his chair and cut the anchoring
cord.
His plan was to lazily float into the sky, and eventually back
to terra
firma. But things didn't quite work out that way.
When Larry cut the
cord, he didn't float lazily up; he shot up as if fired from
a cannon!
Nor did he go up a couple hundred feet. He climbed and
climbed until he
finally leveled off at eleven thousand feet! At that height,
he could
hardly risk deflating any of the balloons, lest he unbalance
the load and
really experience flying. So he stayed up there, sailing
around for
fourteen hours, totally at a loss about how to get down.
Eventually, Larry drifted into the approach corridor for Los
Angeles
International Airport. A Pan Am pilot radioed the tower
about passing a
guy in a lawn chair at eleven thousand feet, with a gun in his
lap . . .
now there's a conversation I would have given anything to have
heard! LAX
is right on the ocean, and you may know that at nightfall, the
winds on
the coast begin to change. So, as dusk fell, Larry began
drifting out to
sea.
At that point, the Navy dispatched a helicopter to rescue him,
but the
rescue team had a hard time getting to him because the draft
from their
propeller kept pushing his home-made contraption farther and
farther
away.
Eventually, they were able to hover above him and drop a rescue
line,
with which they gradually hauled him back to safety. As
soon as Larry hit
the ground, he was arrested. But as he was led away in
handcuffs, a
television reporter called out, "Sir, why'd you do it?"
Larry stopped,
eyes the man, then replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit
around!"
Back to top
* A California pro-prostitution organization called the National
Sexual Rights Council made a fundraising appeal in April for its
benevolent campaign to get teenage hookers off the streets. For
a
$250 donation, the Council's Pretty Woman Committee gives the
donor a T-shirt and a membership card, but for $150,000 (which it
points out is the price of a White House fundraising sleepover), the
seven prostitutes on the committee promise to sleep with the donor,
in Nevada. (Critics note that the campaign, ostensibly to save
wayward children, would also result in less competition for the
Council's constituency.)
* In April, the London, England, human rights organization African
Rights accused two Roman Catholic nuns from the Benedictine
abbey in Maredret, Belgium, of ordering dozens of frightened Tutsi
refugees out of their compound in Sovu, Rwanda, into the custody
of Hutu soldiers, who almost immediately killed them. According
to African Rights investigators, the sisters helped the Hutus
willingly in order to protect their compound.
* One aspect of Israeli-Palestinian relations is running smoothly,
according to a May Boston Globe story: car theft. Israel
has the
highest per capita car theft in the world, and police say several
Israeli-Palestinian car-theft rings operate almost effortlessly fencing
cars and parts to dealers on both sides of the border.
JUST CAN'T STOP MYSELF
* Todd Jacob Sherman, 24, pleaded guilty in Norfolk, Va., in
March to swindling an elderly woman out of $70,000. Not only
did
the woman fall for the initial pitch, in which she would have to wire
Sherman "advance taxes" on a $130,000 sweepstakes prize, but
according to the prosecutor, she continued to wire him money, over
100 times during the next 33 months.
* Lewis Ecker II, a diagnosed sexual sadist, was turned down in his
release bid from St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D. C., in
December even though he has made considerable improvement
during his stay, even winning elective office in D. C. in 1990 (and
being re-elected twice since) as an Advisory Neighborhood
Commissioner. However, according to hospital officials, Ecker
hurt his chances of release by secretly composing 21 sexual-sadist
narratives (discovered in a search of the office he had been given
the privilege of using) that featured himself as the protagonist who
humiliated and injured female victims.
* The executive director of the New York State Council on
Problem Gambling told the New York Times in May that printing
its 800 telephone number on lottery tickets in case gambling addicts
need to call for help has resulted instead in many calls from players
desperate for help in selecting the winning numbers. And operators
of the Casino Niagara in Niagara Falls, Ontario, told the Ottawa
Citizen in April that customers' urinating around slot machines has
become a severe problem. (Reluctant to leave a machine that they
are certain will soon pay off, some customers urinate into the
plastic coin cups supplied by the casino, some wear adult diapers
into the casino, and some merely urinate on the floor beside the
machines.)
* Paul Millhouse, 49, pleaded not guilty in February to assault on
an animal after he was arrested in Lakeside, Calif., near San Diego.
He is suspected of being the man sought for 11 years for various
horse stalkings (the very first one of which was reported to police
by Joan Embery, the San Diego Zoo spokesperson who frequently
appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson).
According to police in the latest incident, Millhouse was videotaped
entering a private pasture, taking off his clothes, and fondling a
horse.
PEOPLE WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS
* In December, a man from southern England named Nigel paid
about $128,000 at a London auction for the personalized license
plate "N1 GEL." Eighty other plates brought in about $2.7 million.
A month before that in London, the much less wealthy Dave Parker
spent about $40 to have a plate matching his name: He paid a
filing
fee to change his name legally to [Mr.] C 539 FUG, which is his
current license plate.
* The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario) reported in February that
local physician Ron Charach, who is the author of a volume of
poems by Canadian doctors, recently had one of his works selected
to be published in the prestigious British medical journal, The
Lancet. The title of the poem is the same as the last two words
in
this passage: "In silence after heavy rain / you can hear prostates
growing."
* In a brief interview published in Fortune magazine in February,
Todd Sloane, a marketing executive with Publishers Clearing
House (the $10 million sweepstakes people) was asked whether
entrants worry that the PCH prize patrol can't find them if they win:
"We get thousands of calls from entrants warning us their house is
hard to get to [or] they'll be at Uncle Jack's, whatever."
* TV Mania: According to research commissioned by the Weather
Channel cable TV channel and disclosed by a company executive in
April, one in five viewers watches the channel for at least three
hours at a sitting. The company calls these people "weather-
involved." And Andrew Thomas, 27, apparently healthy except
for
depression at being laid off four years earlier at his job in
Glamorgan, Wales, died in April of natural causes in front of the
TV set he had watched almost constantly since then.
* In a poll of Ontario residents commissioned by Global Television
and reported by the Toronto Star in December, it was revealed that
a majority believe in miracles, although the Star pointed out that
some respondents' standards are lower than others, such as in one
man's example of a miracle he had witnessed: "I went to someone's
house and got a good deal on a power tool that I wanted for a long
time."
WELL-PUT
* Patricia Walsh, Carmel, Calif., defending in May her decision to
spend $6,000 to dress up a rock she found to look like Gen.
Douglas McArthur: "I'm an old lady, and I can amuse myself doing
whatever I like."
* In April, Sir Roger Penrose, a British math professor who has
worked with Stephen Hawking on such topics as relativity, black
holes, and whether time has a beginning, filed a copyright-
infringement lawsuit against the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, which
Penrose said copied a pattern he created (a pattern demonstrating
that "a nonrepeating pattern could exist in nature") for its Kleenex
quilted toilet paper. Penrose said he doesn't like litigation
but,
"When it comes to the population of Great Britain being invited by
a multinational to wipe their bottoms on what appears to be the
work of a Knight of the Realm, then a last stand must be taken."
* Philip Morris president James Morgan, in a lawsuit deposition
released in May, pointing out why he believes cigarettes are not
addictive: "I love Gummi Bears [candy]. . . and I want Gummi
Bears and I like Gummi Bears and I eat Gummi Bears and I don't
like it when I don't eat my Gummi Bears, but I'm certainly not
addicted to them."
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-------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir,
I am writing in response
to your request for additional
information in Block
#3 of the accident reporting form. I
put "Poor Planning"
as the cause of my accident. You asked
for a fuller explanation
and I trust the following details
will be sufficient.
I am a bricklayer by
trade. On the day of the accident, I
was working alone
on the roof of a new six-story building.
When I completed my
work, I found I had some bricks left
over which when weighed
later were found to weigh 240 lbs.
Rather than carry
the bricks down by hand, I decided to
lower them in a barrel
by using a pulley which was attached
to the side of the
building at the sixth floor.
Securing the rope at
ground level, I went up to the roof,
swung the barrel out
and loaded the bricks into it. Then I
went down and untied
the rope, holding it tightly to insure
a slow descent of
the 240 lbs of bricks.
You will note on
the accident reporting form that my weight
is 135 lbs.
Due to my surprise
at being jerked off the ground so
suddenly, I lost my
presence of mind and forgot to let go of
the rope.
Needless to say, I
proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of
the building. In the
vicinity ofthe third floor, I met the
barrel which was now
proceeding downward at an equally
impressive speed.
This explains the fractured skull, minor
abrasions and the
broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3,
accident reporting
form.
Slowed only slightly,
I continued my rapid ascent, not
stopping until the
fingers of my right hand were two
knuckles deep into
the pulley which I mentioned in Paragraph
2 of this correspondence.
Fortunately by this time I had
regained my presence
of mind and was able to hold tightly
to the rope, in spite
of the excruciating pain I was now
beginning to experience.
At approximately the
same time, however, the barrel of
bricks hit the ground
and the bottom fell out of the barrel.
Now devoid of the
weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed
approximately 50 lbs.
I refer you again to my weight.
As you might imagine,
I began a rapid descent down the side
of the building.
In the vicinity of the third floor, I met
the barrel coming
up. This accounts for the two fractured
ankles, broken tooth
and severe lacerations of my legs and
lower body.
Here my luck began
to change slightly. The encounter with
the barrel seemed
to slow me enough to lessen my injuries
when I fell into the
pile of bricks and fortunately only three
vertebrae were cracked.
I am sorry to report,
however, as I lay there on the pile of
bricks, in pain, unable
to move and watching the empty
barrel six stories
above me, I again lost my composure and
presence of mind and
let go of the rope and I lay there
watching the empty
barrel begin its journey back onto me.
Back to top
The captain did his best to skirt the edge of the storm, but it was
a
pretty rough ride just the same - rough enough that the flight attendants
were
ordered to strap themselves into their seats for about half an hour,
and many of
the passengers were putting the little plastic-lined bags in their
seat pockets
to good use. When the turbulence finally abated, the flight attendants
unbuckled themselves, and the captain's voice came on over the intercom:
"Well, folks, that was quite some ride, wasn't it! But we came through
it fine,
just the way we always do, and I'm happy to report that it looks like
the
remainder of our trip should be much calmer. On behalf of myself
and today's
flight crew, I'd like to thank you very much for your calmness and
cooperation,
and extend our best wishes for a pleasant stay in Boston."
After a short pause and several clicks, there came a few words more...
"Jesus Christ - whadda bitchin' ride! Boy - I sure could use
a cup of good
strong coffee and a blow job right about now."
As a stricken stewardess dashed up the aisle to the cabin to inform
the
captain that his intercom was still on, one of the passengers called
after her:
"Don't forget the coffee!"
Back to top
* Warren E. Smith filed a $3 million lawsuit in Roanoke, Va., in
April against palm reader Lola Rose Miller because she sold him bad
numbers to play in the state lottery. He is suing for the amount of
that week's grand prize, which he says he should have won.
[Washington Times, 4-5-95]
* In June, a jury in Pensacola, Fla., awarded nearly $600,000 to
Pedro Duran, 56, in his lawsuit against the CSX company. Duran lost
his left arm and suffered a broken back and leg when a CSX train hit
him as he lay on the tracks, passed out from a round of drinking.
According to trial testimony, an engineer spotted what he thought
was a lump of trash on the tracks and sounded the whistle as a
precaution for 54 seconds before the collision. However, the "lump
of trash"--Duran--didn't move. [Orlando Sentinel-AP, 7-1-95]
* In May, Laura Carlton, 23, accepted an out-of-court settlement by
the City of Victoria, British Columbia, in her lawsuit for injuries
she suffered when a police officer inadvertently shot her during a
raid. She had sued for around $200,000--$50,000 of which was for
her loss of earnings as a prostitute, which she regarded as a
stepping stone to a future as an exotic dancer. [Edmonton Journal,
5-28-95]
I DON'T THINK SO
* In court testimony in August in the New York City terrorist
bombing trial, since-convicted Fadil Abdelghani testified that,
although he was caught on videotape stirring the bomb's oil and
fertilizer, he had no knowledge that he was making a bomb. Asked a
prosecutor, "Something came over you and you had an urge to start
stirring?" Said Abdelghani, "I had nothing to do, and I wanted to
help [my cousin's friends]." [New York Times, 8-23-95]
* Police in Collinsville, Ill., arrested Earl Templeton, 38, and
charged him with passing three counterfeit $100 bills. According to
police, Templeton said he was not trying to enrich himself but
rather to stimulate the economy. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 6-17-95]
* In May, Dorothy Diane Rose, who is in a halfway house in Tampa,
Fla., the result of a 1990 trial in which she was found not guilty
by reason of insanity for strangling her two toddlers, petitioned
her judge in Tampa, Fla., to be released because she has a job lined
up. According to a counselor, a local couple wants to hire her as a
babysitter. [Tampa Tribune, May95]
* In Sonora, Calif., in August, former U. S. Forest Service
employee Gary Gunderson, 43, was convicted of theft of what
prosecutors said were "truckloads" of items of government property.
Gunderson said he might have borrowed a few things but that because
he suffers from Usher's syndrome, which he said causes visual
impairment, he wasn't able to see well enough to realize that he had
a lot more stuff than he thought. [Sacramento
Bee-AP, 8-31-95]
Back to top
"THE PRESIDENT HAS KEPT ALL OF THE PROMISES HE INTENDED TO
KEEP."
Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live
"THE POLICE ARE NOT HERE TO CREATE DISORDER, THEY'RE HERE TO PRESERVE
DISORDER"
Former Chicago mayor Daley during the infamous 1968 convention
"IF YOU'VE SEEN ONE REDWOOD TREE, YOU'VE SEEN THEM ALL"
Forestry expert Ronald Reagan
"TRADITIONALLY, MOST OF AUSTRALIA'S IMPORTS COME FROM
OVERSEAS"
Former Australian cabinet minister KeppelEnderbery
"IT IS WONDERFUL TO BE HERE IN THE GREAT STATE OF CHICAGO"
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle
"THE STREETS ARE SAFE IN PHILADELPHIA, IT'S ONLY THE PEOPLE
THAT MAKE THEM UNSAFE"
Former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Chief Frank Rizzo
"THE INTERNET IS A GREAT WAY TO GET ON THE NET"
Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole
"IT IS BAD LUCK TO BE SUPERSTITIOUS"
Andrew Mathis
"HE WAS A MAN OF GREAT STATUE"
Boston mayor Thomas Menino on former mayor John Collins
"IT'S LIKE AN ALCATRAZ AROUND MY NECK"
Boston mayor Menino on the shortage of city parking spaces
"I WAS RECENTLY ON A TOUR OF LATIN AMERICA, AND THE ONLY
REGRET I HAVE WAS THAT I DIDN'T STUDY LATIN HARDER IN SCHOOL SO I COULD
CONVERSE WITH THOSE PEOPLE"
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle
"THEY'RE MULTIPURPOSE. NOT ONLY DO THEY PUT THE CLIPS ON, BUT THEY TAKE
THEM OFF."
Pratt & Whitney spokesperson explaining why the company charged
the
Air Force nearly $1000 for an ordinary pair of pliers.
"WE'RE GOING TO TURN THIS TEAM AROUND 360 DEGREES."
Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks
"I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE SOME REPORTER SPAWING THROUGH OUR
PAPERS. WE ARE THE PRESIDENT."
Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents
"WHEN MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE THROWN OUT OF WORK,
UNEMPLOYMENT RESULTS."
Former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge
"CHINA IS A BIG COUNTRY, INHABITED BY MANY CHINESE"
Former French President Charles De Gaulle
"THE LOSS OF LIFE WILL BE IRREPLACEABLE."
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle on the San Francisco earthquake
"THAT LOW DOWN SCOUNDREL DESERVES TO BE KICKED TO DEATH
BY A JACKASS, AND I'M JUST THE ONE TO DO IT."
A congressional candidate in Texas
"IT IS NECESSARY FOR ME TO ESTABLISH A WINNER IMAGE.
THEREFORE, I HAVE TO BEAT SOMEBODY."
Richard M. Nixon
"THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT DOING ENOUGH ABOUT CLEANING UP THE ENVIRONMENT.
THIS IS A GOOD PLANET."
Mr. New Jersey contestant when asked what he would do with a million
dollars.
"WHEN I HAVE BEEN ASKED DURING THESE LAST WEEKS WHO
CAUSED THE RIOTS AND THE KILLING IN L.A., MY ANSWER HAS BEEN
DIRECT AND SIMPLE: WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE RIOTS? THE RIOTERS
ARE TO BLAME. WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE KILLINGS? THE KILLERS ARE TO BLAME."
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle on the complex social issues
behind the Los Angeles Riots
"THINGS ARE MORE LIKE THEY ARE NOW THAN THEY EVER WERE
BEFORE."
Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
"A BILLION HERE, A BILLION THERE, SOONER OR LATER IT ADDS UP TO REAL
MONEY."
Everett Dirksen
"A VERBAL CONTRACT ISN'T WORTH THE PAPER IT'S WRITTEN ON."
Samuel Goldwyn
"REPUBLICANS UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF BONDAGE
BETWEEN A MOTHER AND CHILD.
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle on Republican family values
"I DON'T FEEL WE DID WRONG IN TAKING THIS GREAT COUNTRY AWAY FROM THEM.
THERE WERE GREAT NUMBERS OF PEOPLE WHO NEEDED NEW LAND, AND THE INDIANS
WERE SELFISHLY TRYING TO KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES."
John Wayne (former Republican Fund Raiser and occasional actor)
"HALF THIS GAME IS NINETY PERCENT MENTAL."
Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark
"IT ISN'T POLLUTION THAT'S HARMING THE ENVIRONMENT. IT'S THE
IMPURITIES IN OUR AIR AND WATER THAT ARE DOING IT."
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle
"WITHOUT CENSORSHIP, THINGS CAN GET TERRIBLY CONFUSED IN THE PUBLIC
MIND."
General William Westmoreland
"WHAT A WASTE IT IS TO LOSE ONE'S MIND. OR NOT TO HAVE A MIND
IS BEING VERY WASTEFUL. HOW TRUE THAT IS."
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle at a fundraising event for the
United Negro College Fund. He was attempting to quote the line "a mind
is a
terriblething to waste"
"IF YOU LET THAT SORT OF THING GO ON, YOUR BREAD AND BUTTER
WILL BE CUT RIGHT OUT FROM UNDER YOUR FEET."
Former British foreign minister Ernest Bevin
"I LOVE CALIFORNIA. I PRACTICALLY GREW UP IN PHOENIX."
Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle
Back to top
Darwin #3
Miami, FL motorist Alvin Sims didn't notice
that his truck had smacked
into a utility pole and his passenger was
dead until the police
stopped his car.
Donna Richardson,
29, was hanging her head out of the window of her
boy friends 1993 Chevrolet truck early Saturday
- she was vomiting -
when the truck suddenly veered. Her head slammed
a pole and she died
instantly, police said Monday. Sims,
36. kept driving.
Metro-Dade police
said when an officer stopped the truck several miles
later - it's right mirror and antenna were
damaged. Sims told police
that he was looking for a hospital because
his passenger was sick.
"Apparently,
he thought he hit a puddle and did not see that he had
killed her".
Darwin #4
On February 3, 1990, a Renton (Seattle area)
man tried to commit a
robbery. This was probably his first attempt,
as suggested by his lack
of a record of violent crime, and by his terminally
stupid choice:
The target was H&J Leather & Firearms,
a gunshop; The shop was full of
customers, in a state where a substantial
fraction of the adult
population is licensed to carry concealed
handguns in public places;
To enter the shop, he had to step around a
marked King County Police
patrol car parked at the front door; An officer
in uniform was
standing next to the counter, having coffee
before reporting to duty.
Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber
announced a holdup and
fired a few wild shots.
The officer
and a clerk promptly returned fire, removing him from the
gene pool. Several other customers also
drew their guns, but didn't
fire. No one else was hurt.
Darwin #5
Derrick L. Richardson, 28, was charged in
April in Minneapolis with
third-degree murder in the death of his beloved
cousin, Ken E.
Richardson. According to police, Derrick suggested
a game of Russian
roulette and put a semiautomatic pistol to
Ken's head instead of a
revolver. (For the gun-unschooled: There
is much less mystery to the
game if played with a semiautomatic, in which
the one bullet
automatically goes into the firing chamber.)
Darwin #6
MOSCOW, RUSSIA -A drunk security man asked
a colleague at the Moscow
bank they were guarding to stab his bullet-proof
vest to see if it
protected him against the knife . . . It didn't
and the 25-year-old
guard died of a heart wound. Isn't it
good to see the Russians
getting into the spirit of the awards.
Darwin #7
Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when
he decided to commit
suicide. He stood at the top of a tall
cliff and tied a noose around
his neck. He tied the other end of the rope
to a large rock. He drank
some poison and set fire to his clothes. He
even tried to shoot
himself at the last moment.
He jumped and
fired the pistol. The bullet missed him and cut through
the rope above him. Free of the threat of
hanging, he plunged into the
sea. The sudden dunking extinguished the flames
and made him vomit the
poison.
He was dragged
out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to
hospital, where he died... of exposure!!!
Back to top
A police officer had a perfect hiding place for watching for
speeders. But oneday the officer found the problem: a 10
year old boy was standing on the side of the road with a
huge hand painted sign which said "RADAR TRAP AHEAD."
A little more investigative work led the officer to the boy's
accomplice, another boy about 100 yards beyond the radar
trap with a sign reading TIPS" and a bucket at his feet, full
of
change.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed
trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed
his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40, and
a
photo of his car.
Instead of payment, he sent the police department a
photograph of $40.
Several days later, he received a letter from the police
department that contained another picture - one of handcuffs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
True story from Orange County:
A man goes to a party and has too much to drink. His friends
plead with him to let them take him home. He says
no - he
only lives a mile away.
About five blocks from the party the police pull him over for
weaving and ask him to get out of the car and walk the line.
Just as he starts, the police radio blares out a notice of a
robbery taking place in a house just a block away. The
police tell the party animal to stay put, they will be right
back
- and they run down the street to the robbery.
The guy waits and waits and finally decides to drive home.
When he gets there, he tells his wife he is going to bed, and
to tell anyone who might come looking for him that he has
the flu and has been in bed all day.
A few hours later the police knock on the door. They ask if
Mr. X lives there and his wife says yes. They ask to see
him
and she replies that he is in bed with the flu and has been so
all day. The police have his driver's license. They ask to see
his car and she asks why. They insist on seeing his car, so
she takes them to the garage and opens the door where
they find the car - the police car, lights still
flashing. This
true story was told by the driver at his first AA meeting,
according to the newspaper account.
Back to top
* State University College at New Paltz, N.Y., hosted
controversial, sex-related academic conferences on the weekends
of October 31 and November 7. The first included tips on
sadomasochism and the use of sex toys, and the second, on
women's bodies in art, featured such exhibits as a female graduate
student in a body suit, suspended from a ceiling, being hosed down
with water by two men while a woman lying underneath her and
wearing only a G-string has hot wax dripped on her body.
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
* In August in Sharnbrook, England, Emma Webster, 15, revealed
she was pregnant, due in January, and that the father was Sean
Stewart, age 11, whom she had met in school and whom she
thought was at least 15. Said Emma to London's Daily Mail, "I
think he will be a good father. He may only be 11, but he is
quite
mature and responsible for his age."
THINNING THE HERD
* A 38-year-old man passed away in Jenkins Township, Pa., in
November, a couple of hours after going to the home of a friend to
see his snakes. According to the friend, the man had playfully
reached into a cobra's tank and picked up the snake, and was bitten.
Refusing a ride to the hospital, the man said "I'm a man, I can
handle it," and instead went to a bar, where he had three drinks and
bragged to patrons that he had just been bitten by a cobra. An
hour
later, he was dead.
* On the morning of November 11, two best friends, ages 27 and
41, residents of Whitney, Tex., about 25 miles north of Waco, did
what they often did when they encountered each other on the empty
farm roads: They drove their pickups directly at each other in
a
game of chicken. That morning, they collided at about 60 miles
an
hour. The younger man was saved by his seatbelt; the older man
was unbelted and died at the scene.
Back to top