Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Yes, it’s that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us.

Here Is The Glorious Winner:
1. When his .38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

And Now, The Honorable Mentions:
2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef’s claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6.. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer… $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.”

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast… The frustrated gunman walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had and the perp had been punished enough!

16 comments:

Chris said...

They're funny, but they're not all this year's crop. Most of these have been circulating each year for about the past five years. They still give me a laugh though, so worth another airing.

Jody E. Lebel said...

@ Chris. Well, call me gullible. I got this off the Internet and they said it was this year's crop ... and I believed them. Imagine me, a court reporter who hears people lying all day every day... getting taken? hahahaha I must be off my game. :)

Mary Jo said...

Maybe we should doubt they ever actually happened? Like those digitalized photos that claim to have been taken at just the right moment. Oh, what is real and what isn't these days?

Tamara said...

These are really funny, Jody (I think I've misspelled your name a few times--with an "i"--tell me off if I do.) I don't drive, but I live in Chicago, and I really appreciated #3. I think there's a TV show that features these kinds of stories; I believe they could be true. (The editor in me wants to see a comma following the state names in numbers 1 and 9.)

Jody E. Lebel said...

@ Tamara. My last name is Lebel. Well, you know just about everyone I deal with (reservationists, secretaries, drug store clerks) will spell it Labelle ... even when I spell it. I don't get upset when people don't get my name right. I'm sure I've done it.

I understand the editing desire. I've even walked into stores that have misspelled signs and talked to the manager. It's a pet peeve of mine as well.

Tamara said...

I find myself obsessed with misplaced "only", and "She gave the book to Janice and 'I'". I just noticed the picture on the right; that's funny, too.

Mary Jo said...

Ah, Tamara, you just blew my fuse. Even people who make their living speaking in public insist on using "I" instead of the correct "me". I mean people on national news programs who get paid the big bucks. They must not understand how ignorant they sound. Most editors will not stand for it, I am happy to say.

Chris said...

Okay, grammatical peeves. How about the current 'I was SAT watching TV'. Arggh. Or 'Me and my friend went to...' Oh, boy. And, yes, I too have been guilty of going into a store and pointing out an error on a sign. Are we obsessed, do you think?

Jody E. Lebel said...

@ Ladies. Yes, we might be a tad obsessed. It's the nature of our writing lives. Does anyone watch the TV show Dance Moms? Abby Lee Miller will talk about the next dance number she wants the girls to learn and she will say "And this piece is entitled --" Drives. Me. Nuts. I've even dropped her show a line saying, "For gawd's sake, doesn't ANYONE on her staff/team/show know better?"

Tamara said...

Yes, Mary Jo, I hear it on TV from journalists galore. Someone referred to it as "afraid of the 'me' word". Once on Judge Judy a mother whose son was a defendant with her corrected her son when he'd used the 'me' word correctly, and Judy praised the mother for correcting him, when he'd actually said it correctly. Judy doesn't know everything after all.

Mary Jo said...

Tamara, I think that is so funny. Maybe you should drop Judy a line and point out the correct usage of I and me. You might also want to include myself which the ignorant use in place of me. Ah, this wonderful language.

You hear the mistake made repeatedly in TV dramas...both soaps and Hallmark and I am sure others. In that case, the writers and the editors and the actors are all to blame.

I think I will send an email to NBC news because enough is enough.

Tamara said...

I actually did put a message on Judy's website citing her mistake. (She's such a know-it-all, I found myself pleased to point out her error--shame on me.)I wrote an article, "Five Grammatical Errors Even Editors Miss" and was promised pubication by the editor of "Writer's Journal", and after waiting a year, he said his committee found lots of fault and it was never published. "The Writer" had just hired a regular grammar columnist who would cover such subjects. There are not a lot of writer's magazines out there.

Mary Jo said...

Now I am curious. What are the Five Grammatical Errors, Tamara? I am probably guilty myself, but I do the best I can.

Did you get any response from Judy or her people? They probably thought you were wrong.

Liv B. said...

Yes, that friggin "I know proper grammar" omnipresent I.
Dear lord, my senior editor at the news org where I work uses it! I don't quite dare to correct him due to this economic climate and hate myself for this cowardice.


Mary Jo said...

The thing is, when an error is repeated continually, it becomes the norm. And the mix-mash of I and me certainly has. I have even seen it approved in more recent articles on grammar. Sort of an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" capitulation. Liv, go ahead and tell the ed that I is a subject and me is an object. You will probably just get, "Oh, no, I am sure you are wrong." How many times have I heard that?

Tamara said...

Liv, the errors are "misplaced only"; "I vs. me"; "like vs. such as"; "misplacement of prepositional phrases"; and "hung vs. hanged".