This year's nominee:
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The lab finally figured out what had happened.
It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (jet assisted take off - actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra push for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got some speed and fired off the JATO.
The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within five seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 miles per hour and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 fighterjocks under full afterburner, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the trip.
However, the automobile apparently remained on the straight highway for about 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. It then became airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep.
Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable, however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be the steering wheel.
Not the brightest guy to leave our presence. Oh well, more
beer for the rest of us.
Rollerskating Barbie
by Dave Barry
As executive director of the Bureau of Consumer Alarm, I am always on the alert for news stories that involve two key elements:
So I was very interested when alert reader Michael Robinson sent me a column titled "Ask Jack Sunn" from the Dec. 13, 1993, issue of the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger. Here's an excerpt from a consumer's letter to this column, which I am not making up:
"Last year, my two daughters received presents of two Rollerblade Barbie dolls by Mattel. On March 8, my 8-year-old daughter was playing beauty shop with her 4-year-old brother. After spraying him with hair spray, the children began to play with the boot to Rollerblade Barbie. My little girl innocently ran the skate across her brother's bottom, which immediately ignited his clothes."
The letter adds that "There are no warnings concerning fire on these toys...I feel the need to warn potential buyers of their danger."
In his response, Jack Sunn says, cryptically, that "Mattel does not manufacture Rollerblade Barbie any more." He does not address the critical question that the consumer's letter raised in my mind, as I'm sure it did yours, namely: Huh?
I realized that the only way to answer this question was to conduct a scientific experiment. As you may recall, last year, in response to a news item concerning a kitchen fire in Ohio, I did an experiment proving that if you put a Kellogg's strawberry Pop-Tart in a toaster and hold the toaster lever down for five minutes and 50 seconds, the Pop-Tart will turn into a snack-pastry blowtorch, shooting flames up to 30 inches high. Also your toaster will be ruined.
The problem was that I did not have a Rollerblade Barbie. My son happens to be a boy, and we never went through the Barbie phase. We went through the Masters of the Universe phase. For two years our household was the scene of a fierce, unceasing battle between armies of good and evil action figures. They were everywhere. You'd open up the salad crisper, and there would be He-Man and Skeletor, striking each other with carrots. So at the end of a recent column, I printed a note appealing for a Rollerblade Barbie. I got two immediately; one from Renee Simmons of Clinton, Iowa, and one from Randy Langhenry of Gainesville, Ga., who said it belonged to his 6-year-old daughter, Greta. ("It would help me if you could get Barbie back to north Georgia before Greta notices she's gone," Randy wrote.)
Rollerblade Barbie is basically a standard Barbie, which is to say, she represents the feminine beauty ideal, if your concept of a beautiful female is one who is six feet, nine inches tall and weighs 52 pounds (37 of which are in the bust area) and has a rigidly perky smile and eyeballs the size of beer coasters and a one-molecule nose and enough hair to clog the Lincoln Tunnel.
But what makes this Barbie special is that she's wearing two little yellow Rollerblade booties, each of which has a wheel similar to the kind found in cigarette lighters, so that when you roll Barbie along, her booties shoot out sparks. This seems like an alarming thing for Rollerblades to do, but Barbie, staring perkily ahead, does not seem to notice.
To ensure high standards of scientific accuracy, I conducted the experiment in my driveway. Aside from Rollerblade Barbie, my materials consisted of several brands of hair spray and -- this was a painful sacrifice a set of my veteran underwear (estimated year of purchase: 1968). I spread the underwear on the driveway, then sprayed it with hair spray, then made Rollerblade Barbie skate across it, sparking her booties. I found that if you use the right brand of hair spray -- I got excellent results with Rave -- Rollerblade Barbie does indeed cause the underwear to burst dramatically into flame.
(While I was doing this, a neighbor walked up, and I just want to say that if you think it's easy to explain why you're squatting in your driveway, in front of a set of burning underwear, surrounded by hair spray bottles, holding a Barbie doll in your hand, then you are mistaken.)
At this point, the only remaining scientific question -- I'm sure this has occurred to you -- was: Could Rollerblade Barbie set fire to a Kellog's strawberry Pop-Tart? The answer turns out to be yes, but you have to be in the act of hair-spraying the Pop-Tart when Barbie Rollerblades over it, so you get a blowtorch effect that could very easily set fire to Barbie's hair, not to mention your own personal self. Plus you get tart filling in the booties. So we can see why Mattel ceased manufacturing Rollerblade Barbie. I imagine that whichever toy designer dreamed up this exciting concept has been transferred to Mattel's coveted Bosnia plant. But what should be done about all the Rollerblade Barbies that are already in circulation? I believe that the only solution is for all concerned consumers to demand that our congress- humans pass a federal law requiring that all underwear, snack pastries and other household objects carry a prominent label stating:
"WARNING! DO NOT SPRAY HAIR SPRAY ON THIS OBJECT AND SKATE ROLLERBLADE BARBIE OVER IT!"
But that is not enough. We also need to appropriate millions of dollars for a massive federal effort to undo the damage that has been done so far. I'm talking about scraping this crud off my driveway.
Also, the taxpayers owe Greta a new Barbie.
More Darwin Awards
It is once again time to vote for the Darwin Award nominees for 1996.
As you know, these nominees will not be contributing to the gene pool
(thankfully).
You may recall last year's Darwin Award winner, the man who found out moments before making a 300 MPH dent in an Arizona cliff that the JATO (jet assist take off) unit he'd strapped to his car could not be turned off once it was turned on.
And 1994's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
The 1997 nominees are:
Here is another recent addition to the infamous Darwin Awards. The Darwin Awards are given to those that have surreptitiously eliminated themselves from the gene pool so that we can all eventually evolve into normal, rational creatures.
Police in George, WA issued a report on the events leading up to the deaths of Robert Uhlenake (24) and his friend, Ormond D. Young (27) at the Metallica concert last Friday. Uhlenake and Young were found dead at the Gorge Amphitheater after the show. Uhlenake was found in a pickup which was on top of Young at the bottom of a 20 ft drop. Young was found with severe lacerations, numerous fractures, contusions, and a branch in his anal cavity. He also had been stabbed and his pants were in a tree above him, some 15 ft off the ground; adding to the mystery of the heretofore unexplained scene. According to Commissioner-In-Charge Inoye Appleton, Uhlenake and Young had tried to get tickets for the sold-out concert. When they were unable to get any tickets, the two decided to stay in the lot and drink. Once the show began, and after the two had consumed 18 beers between the two of them, they hit upon the idea of scaling the 7 foot wooden security fence around the perimeter of the site and sneak in.
They apparently moved the truck up to the edge of the fence and decided that Young would go over first and assist Uhlenake later. They had not counted on the fact that while it was a 7 foot fence on the parking lot side, there was a 23 foot drop on the other side. Young, who weighed 255 lbs and was quite inebriated, had jumped up and over the fence and promptly fell about half the 23 foot distance before a large tree branch broke his fall AND his left forearm; unfortunately, he also managed to get his shorts caught on the branch. Since he was now in a lot of pain and with no way to extricate himself and his shorts from the tree, he decided, seeing bushes down below, to cut his shorts off and fall to the ground. Upon cutting the last bit of fabric from himself, he suddenly plummeted to earth, losing grip of the knife. The "soft" bushes were actually holly bushes and landing in them caused a massive number of cuts. He also had the misfortune of landing his posterior squarely on a holly bush branch; effectively impaling himself through his anus.
The knife, which he had accidentally released 15 ft up, now landed and stabbed him in his left thigh. Apparently, he was in a lot of pain. Enter his friend Robert. Uhlenake had apparently observed the last bit of this and, despite his inebriated state, realized that Young was in trouble. He hit upon the idea of lowering a rope to his friend and pull him up and over the fence. This was complicated by the fact that Uhlenake was outweighed by his friend by a good 100 lbs. Again, despite his state he realized he could use their truck to pull Young out. Unfortunately, because of his state, Uhlenake put the truck in reverse, rather than drive, broke through the fence, landed on Young (killing him), was thrown out of the truck and subsequently died of internal injuries.
"So that's how a dead 255 lb man with no pants on, with a truck on top of him and a stick up his ass came to be" said Commissioner Appleton.
This is the transcript of an ACTUAL radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October,1995 Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95.
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
And the last and best .....
Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud.
"The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern.
"With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that happen sometimes-a billion-to-one shot, at least."
The heartbreaking tale of constipation and tragedy began April 23 when the conscientious zookeeper noticed that his prize, 8,000-pound African elephant didn't seem to be producing his usual poop aplenty.
"Friedrich had actually been concerned for several days because he knew that severe constipation can kill an elephant," his assistant said. He was going to stay late that Thursday night to treat Stefan with laxatives and possibly give him an enema.
"I offered to help, but he sent me on home, saying he had everything under control."
But two hours later, horrified night watchman Walter Pleuger found Friedrich lying lifeless under a mound of muck, his body visible only from the knees down.
Laxatives caused Stefan to unleash an outpouring of poop, burying his trainer alive. "I had never really thought about it before," Det. Dern said. "But obviously, giving an elephant an enema can be a very dangerous activity-and not something that should be attempted alone."