A few years back a woman and her little boy stopped into the local McDonalds for some lunch. The little boy was playing in the ballpit while his mother finished up her lunch. The boy ran over to his mother several times and told her that something was biting him in the ballpit. She brushed him off and sent him back to play each time.
After a while, the boy collapsed and was rushed to the hospital and later died.
Upon investigation they discovered that a rattlesnake had made her home at the bottom of the ballpit and lay eggs. The eggs had hatched and the boy had suffered several fatal bites.
When the Korean War ended in 1953, more than 8000 American soldiers were missing. No doubt many of them died in action but could not be identified; a few deserted or defected to Korea. However, it has long been believed that the Communist regime in North Korea maintained prisoner-of-war camps containing American soldiers. In September, 1996, a defector from North Korea to the U.S. said that he made many visits between 1982 and 1993 to a prison camp housing a few dozen elderly Americans captured during the war. He said that they were thin but otherwise seemed to be well-treated, and that the regime had even provided them with Korean wives. A Washington military intelligence specialist was quoted by the "New York Times" as saying that intelligence personnel "take it as a given" that POWs are still held in North Korea. On the other hand, this latest statement could be a fabrication by a defector who wants asylum in the U.S., or even "disinformation" spread by a double agent.
It was the night before Thanksgiving, and a young couple decided to go out on the town after spending several tiring
months caring for their new baby. The couple was a bit worried when they met the baby sitter. She was dressed as if
she was an extra in the movie Hair, and smelled like the inside of a bong. Not that we know what that smells like. In
any case, the parents went out, in spite of their misgivings. (It's hard to find a sitter, after all.) During dinner, the
young mother became so worried that she rushed to a pay phone and called home. The baby sitter assured her that
everything was fine, in fact she had just preheated the oven to start baking the turkey. Back at the table, the
husband asked what the baby sitter had said. When his wife told him, he frowned and said, "We didn't have a turkey
in the fridge." Worried, they called for the check and rushed home. Their fears were justified. The baby sitter was
crazed on drugs, and was finished basting the infant with gravy and had popped her into the scalding hot oven. It
was too late.
Paul thought that his two-week business trip provided the perfect ending for his relationship with
Noreen. After all, they were both mature, civilized adults. While he was gone,
Noreen would have time to find a new apartment, pack her stuff, and move out, with none of those exhausting and embarrassing arguments.
When Paul got back, all traces of Noreen had been erased. Her keys were on the kitchen table. Her clothes were out of the closet. She didn't trash the apartment or make off with Paul's valuable art collection. The only odd note was the telephone receiver in the bedroom: off the hook.
A week later, Paul got his telephone bill, including thirteen straight days of toll calls to telephone information...in Tokyo.
1998 DARWIN AWARDS
For those not familiar with the Darwin Award, it's an annual honor given to the person who provided the universal human gene pool the biggest service by getting killed in the most extraordinarily stupid way. As always, competition this year has been keen again. Some candidates appear to have trained their whole lives for this event. The winner is at the end of this message, but starting with the
DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES:
1. In September in Detroit, a 41 year old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing headfirst through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
2. In October, a 49 year old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran", according to his wife, accidentally jogged off a 200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
3. Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to claw their way to Jones, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.
4. In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
5. According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23, who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the
flak vest Berrena was wearing.
6. Sylvester Briddell, 26, was killed in February in Selbyville, Delaware, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with 4 bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
7. In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.
DARWIN HONORABLE MENTIONS
1. Taking "Amateur Night" Too Far: In Betulia, Colombia, an annual festival in November includes five days of amateur bullfighting. This year, no bull was killed, but dozens of matadors were injured, including one gored in the head and one Bobbittized. Said one participant, "It's just one bull against a thousand morons."
2. Four people were injured in a string of related bizarre accidents. Sherry Moeller was admitted with a head wound caused by flying masonry, Tim Vegas was diagnosed with a mild case of whiplash and contusions on his chest, arms and face. Bryan Corcoran suffered torn gum tissue, and Pamela Klesick's first two fingers of her right hand had been bitten off. How did all this happen? Moeller had just dropped her husband off on his first day of work and, in addition to a good-bye kiss, she flashed her breasts at him. "I'm still not sure why I did it," she said later, "I was really close to the car, so I didn't think anyone could see. Besides, it couldn't have been for more than two seconds." However, cab driver Vegas did see and lost control of his cab, running over the curb and into the corner of the Johnson Medical Building. Inside, Kleseck, a dental technician, was cleaning Corcoran's teeth. The crash of the cab against the building made her jump, tearing Corcoran's gums with a cleaning pick. In shock, he bit down, severing two fingers from Klesick's hand. Moeller's wound was caused by a falling piece of the medical building.
3. Taos, NM - A woman went to a poison control center after eating three birth-control vaginal inserts. Her English was so bad she had to draw a picture describing how she believed she had poisoned herself. A translator arrived shortly thereafter and confirmed doctor's suspicions. Marie Valishnokov thought the inserts were some kind of candy or gum, being unable to read the foil wrappers. After the third one, she realized something was wrong when her throat and mouth began to fill with a sour-tasting foam. She ran for the Poison Control Center, where doctors were able to flush the foam from her mouth, throat and stomach with no ill effects.
4. LaGrange, GA - Attorney Antonio Mendoza was released from a trauma center after having a cell phone removed from his rectum. "My dog drags the thing all over the house," he said later. "He must have dragged it into the shower. I slipped on the tile, tripped against the dog and sat right down on the thing." The extraction took more than three hours due to the fact that the cover to Mr. Mendoza's phone had opened during insertion. "He was a real trooper during the entire episode," said Dr. Dennis Crobe. "Tony just cracked jokes and really seemed to be enjoying himself. Three times during the extraction his phone rang and each time, he made jokes about it that just had us rolling on the floor. By the time we finished, we really did expect to find an answering machine in there."
**** AND THE WINNER ******
PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop!
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 one of those freak accidents that happen."
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