Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Zipper Accidents (15 page)
Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Zipper Accidents Online
Authors: Uncle John’s
BLUFF CALLED
Derrick Johnson annoyed a Kansas City gas station clerk over the course of three months in 1990, coming in every few days and stealing food from a cooler, each time taunting the clerk by saying “Catch me if you think you can!” The last time, the clerk shot and killed him.
CARPET BAGGERS
In 1981 Dora Wilson of Harlow, England, looked out the window and saw some men moving her next-door-neighbor’s prized collection of Persian rugs into a van. Wilson asked the men what they were up to, as the neighbors were away on vacation. The men replied that they were rug cleaners. Pleased at the opportunity, Wilson asked the crew if they would take her Persian rugs to be cleaned as well. They did, and neither Wilson nor the neighbors saw the rugs again. Obviously, the men were not rug cleaners.
W
ho Represents is a resource for finding out what talent agent represents any celebrity:
Pen Island sells…pens at:
Therapist Finder locates a therapist in your area:
Speed of Art is a design firm, not a swimsuit flatulence company:
Regency Technologies disposes of old computer or “IT” equipment, including running an IT scrap service, which explains the URL:
Benjamin Dover is a financial planner and author:
For information on New York State’s many canals:
Dave Robins is a tree surgeon, or arborist, in France. He named his business from the French word for forests,
les bocages
:
Although Americans are tough, they’re not
that
tough; this site represents a scrap metal dealer:
Dickson makes data-entry and data-crunching software, and they probably get a lot more web traffic than they expect at:
For a quick-reference guide on the expert web sites for information in insurance, travel, and Internet services (and that’s it):
When visiting the Hocking Hills region of Ohio, book lodging through Old Man’s Haven Cabin Rentals:
O
ctober 17, 1814, began like any other dismal London day, but it was about to get more dismal than usual. Several giant wooden vats of aged stout stood inside the Horse Shoe Brewery, a massive building that rose above the squalid slums of the St. Giles parish in central London. At half past four that afternoon, a brewery worker noticed that an 800-pound metal hoop had slipped off the lower section of one of the vats. He left a note for his supervisor about it and got back to work. About an hour later, workers heard a very loud, creaking noise coming from that vat.
And then all ale broke loose. More than 3,500 barrels’ worth of 10-month-old porter erupted from the compromised vat. A 15-foot-high wall of a dark, full-bodied ale with a slight hint of mahogany took out more tanks. Then the torrent of beer crashed through the brewery’s outer wall.
With no warning, a tsunami of stout, wood, and metal laid waste to several homes and businesses near the brewery. One unfortunate servant at the Tavistock Arms Pub was crushed when a wall collapsed on him. Seven women and children were killed in their homes. According to local legend, another man died a few days later of alcohol poisoning.
B
UM RUM
A bar owner in Nicaragua brewed a small batch of rum and put it in cans. Bad idea: The cans once contained insecticide, and he hadn’t washed them out very well. Eleven people were poisoned by drinking the tainted rum. When he was tried for 11 counts of poisoning, the barkeep tried to prove his innocence by proudly drinking a large glass of the rum. He died a few minutes later.
MAGNUM, P.O.
In 1989 New York wine merchant William Sokolin attended a ritzy $250-a-plate Bordeaux dinner for wine enthusiasts at New York’s famed Four Seasons restaurant. He announced to the nearly 200 guests that he had acquired a bottle of 1787 Chateau Margaux, which Sokolin estimated to be worth around $520,000. And then it was worth nothing when he bumped it against a piece of furniture, poking two holes in the very old and very fragile bottle, from which most of the wine immediately leaked out.
A
man without an arm walked into a Bellingham, Washington, urology clinic in October 2011. “I hope that’s a Halloween costume,” said one of the urology techs. But the bloody stump was real. The armless man—whose name wasn’t released, so we’ll call him Stumpy—refused to cooperate with the urology techs, but they’d seen him before and assumed (correctly) that he lived in the woods near the urology clinic. Once Stumpy calmed down, he was transferred to a nearby hospital.
Police later found his campsite, his severed limb, and the device that had severed it: a 16-foot-tall guillotine. Stumpy had constructed it himself “in the medieval style.” (No word on what he planned to use it for.) The arm was raced to the hospital, but doctors were unable to put Stumpy back together again.
“POLICE LATER FOUND HIS CAMPSITE, HIS SEVERED LIMB, AND THE DEVICE THAT HAD SEVERED IT: A 16-FOOT-TALL GUILLOTINE.”
I
n May 2012, actor Martin Short appeared on
The Today Show
to promote his movie
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
. Hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb asked Short a few questions about his kids, then Gifford started praising Short’s wife. “He and Nancy have got one of the greatest marriages of anybody in show business,” she said. “How many years on for you guys?” Short answered, “We, umm, married 36 years.” Gifford leaned in and said, emphatically, “But you’re still like in love.” Short paused for a second, then answered, “Madly in love. Madly in love.” Gifford asked, “Why?” Short answered, “Cute. I’m cute,” to laughs, and the interview was soon over.
However: Short’s wife, actress Nancy Dolman, had died of ovarian cancer in 2010. Short left the
Today
set without saying anything about what had happened, but a producer told Gifford what she had done, and she made an apology on the air immediately. After the show, Gifford tweeted, “I send my sincerest apologies to @MartinShort and his family. He handled situation w/enormous grace and kindness and I’m so grateful.” Bonus gaffe: “@MartinShort” is not Short’s Twitter handle. (It’s “@MartinShortSays.”) But Short did accept Gifford’s apology, telling E! News, “It’s live television and people make mistakes.”
T
RIPLE DIP
In the fourth inning of a game between the New York Yankees and the Milwaukee Brewers on July 27, 1988, the Brewers’ Jim Gantner was on first base when Jeffrey Leonard hit a light tapper to the first-base side of the pitching mound. Yankees pitcher Tommy John tried to field the ball with his bare hand…and flubbed it. (Error.) He got control of the ball and threw it to first…over the head of first baseman Don Mattingly and down the right-field line. (Error.) Right fielder Dave Winfield got the ball and threw it toward home in an attempt to get Gantner out. John cut off the throw and threw it home…over the head of catcher Don Slaught. (Error.) John tied a record for pitchers, making three errors in one inning—but he’d done it on one play. “I think there were too many negative ions in the air,” John said after the game.