This will be the last Stupid People thread I will do, so I decided to wrap up my trilogy with a bang. This, like the other two, are filled with TRUE stories of the dumb who live among us. Anyway, enjoy.
It\'s been fun.
WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER (actual AP headline) Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting her inlaws, and while there, she went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries.
Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her head. One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car.
He noticed that Linda\'s eyes were now open, and she looked very strange. He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she\'d been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour.
The man called the paramedics, who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head. When they finally got in, they found that Linda had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head.
A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid. And, yes, Linda is a blonde.
Mariah Carey was one of the first celebrities to comment on the death of the King of Jordan. Mariah told CNN "I\'m inconsolable at the present time, I was a very good friend of Jordan, he was probably the greatest basketball player this country has ever seen, we will never see his like again".
When told by reporters that it was King Hussein of Jordan who had died and not Michael Jordan, Mariah was then led away by her security in a state of "confusion".
One of my friends works in the customer service call center of a national pager company. He deals with the usual complaints regarding poor pager operation, as well as the occasional crank caller demanding to be paged less often, more often, or by more interesting people.
The best call came from a man who repeatedly complained that he keeps being paged by "Lucille." He was instructed that he would have to call her and tell her to stop paging him.
"She don\'t never leave no number, so I can\'t call her back," he said.
After three such calls, someone thought to ask how he knew it was Lucille if she didn\'t leave a number.
"She leaves her name," was the reply.
After establishing that the customer had a numericonly pager, the light bulb came on.
"How does she spell her name?" the service rep asked.
"L-O-W C-E-L-L"
Another problem solved.
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August, 1998, Montevideo, Uruguay
Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist with the Simphonica Mayor de Uruguay, in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of the orchestra\'s performance of Tchaikovsky\'s 1812 Overture at an outdoor children\'s concert. In complete seriousness he placed a large, ignited firecracker, which was equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his quite new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.
Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through bandages on his mouth, "I thought that the bell of my trombone would shield me from the explosion and, instead, would focus the energy of the blast outward and away from me, propelling the mute high above the orchestra, like a rocket." However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion physics nor qualified to use high-powered artillery and in his haste to get the horn up before the firecracker went off, he failed to raise the bell of the horn high enough so as to give the mute enough arc to clear the orchestra.
What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during those delirious moments of divine inspiration. First, because he failed to sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the mute between rows of players in the woodwind and viola sections of the orchestra, missing the players and straight into the stomach of the conductor, driving him off the podium and directly into the front row of the audience.
Fortunately, the audience were sitting in folding chairs and thus they were protected from serious injury, for the chairs collapsed under them passing the energy of the impact of the flying conductor backwards into row of people sitting behind them, who in turn were driven back into the people in the row behind and so on, like a row of dominos. The sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people falling on their behinds increased logarithmically, adding to the overall sound of brass cannons and brass playing as constitutes the closing measures of the Overture.
Meanwhile, all of this unplanned choreography not withstanding, back on stage Paolo\'s Waterloo was still unfolding. According to Paolo, "Just as I heard the sound of the blast, time seemed to stand still. Everything moved in slow motion. Just before I felt searing pain in my mouth, I could swear I heard a voice with a Austrian accent say, "Fur every akshon zer iz un eekvul un opposeet reakshon!" Well, this should come as no surprise, for Paolo had set himself up for a textbook demonstration of this fundamental law of physics.
Having failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he allowed the energy of the blast to send a superheated jet of gas backwards through the mouth pipe of the trombone, which exited the mouthpiece, burning his lips and face. The pyrotechnic ballet wasn\'t over yet. The force of the blast was so great it split the bell of his shiny Yamaha right down the middle, turning it inside out while at the same time propelling Paolo backwards off the riser. And for the grand finale, as Paolo fell backwards he lost his grip on the slide of the trombone allowing the pressure of the hot gases coursing through the horn to propel the trombone\'s slide like a double golden spear into the head of the 3rd clarinetist, knocking him unconscious and fracturing his skull. I would think the moral of this story is, Beware the next time you hear someone in the trombone section yell out, "Hey, y\'all, watch this!"
Welfare applications,for those unfamiliar, Welfare payments are made in the US to individuals and families with income below a level. The following quotations are taken from actual letters received by the Welfare Department in applications for support of receiving payments.
I am forwarding my marriage certificate and 6 children. I had seven but one died which was baptized on a half sheet of paper.
I am writing the welfare department to say that my baby was born two years old. When do I get my money?
Mrs. Jones has not had any clothes for two years and has been visited regularly by the clergy.
I cannot get sick pay. I have six children can you tell me why?
I am glad to report that my husband who is missing is dead.
This is my eighth child. What are you going to do about it.
Please find for if my husband is dead. The man I am now living with can\'t do anything until he knows.
I am very much annoyed to find out that you have branded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie as I was married a week before he was born.
In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a son weighing 10 lbs. I hope this is satisfactory.
I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my 3 children one of which is a mistake as you can see.
My husband got his project cut off about two weeks ago and I haven\'t had any relief since.
Unless I get my husband\'s money pretty soon, I will be forced to lead an immortal life.
You have my changed little boy to a girl, will this make any difference?
I have no children yet, as my husband is a truck driver and works night and day.
I want money as quick as I can get it. I have been in bed with the doctor for two weeks and he doesn\'t do me any good. If things don\'t improve, I will have to send for another doctor.
In accordance with your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope.
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A "tourist," supposedly on a golf holiday, stood in line at the customs counter. While making idle chatter, the customs official thought it odd that the golfer didn\'t know what a handicap was. The officer then asked the tourist to demonstrate his swing. He did - backwards. A substantial amount of narcotics was found in the golf bag.
Guns For Hire, an Arizona company specializing in staged gunfights for Western movies, got a call from a 47-year-old woman who wanted to have her husband shot. She was sentenced to four years in jail.
A Texan convicted of robbery worked out a deal to pay $9600 in damages rather than serve a two-year prison sentence. For payment, he provided the court a forged check. He got his prison term back, plus eight more years.
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.
According to the Knight-Ridder News Service, the inscription on the metal bands used by the U.S. Department of the Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed. The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated, "Wash. Biol. Surv." until the agency received the following letter from an Arkansas camper:
"Dear Sirs: While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible."