The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool (2 page)
Read The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool Online
Authors: Wendy Northcutt
Tags: #Humor, #Form, #Anecdotes, #General, #Stupidity, #Essays
“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
—Will Rogers
ONTENTS
Darwin Award Winner: The Enema Within
Texas | Michael was addicted to alcohol and to enemas. He liked to take his liquor, well, rectally….
England | Darren was found slumped over in the hallway and bleeding from stab wounds. Victim of an assailant? Not so! A year later, the inquest revealed….
South Carolina | A badly injured twenty-one-year-old couple was found naked in the road before sunrise. There were no witnesses, no trace of clothing, and no wrecked cars….
Mexico | Jessica was working out in the gym when she realized she needed something from the floor below. She headed for the open shaft of the industrial lift….
Germany | Attempting to impress his wife, a forty-nine-year-old man climbed over the balcony, clung to the parapet, and began a set of pull-ups….
Singapore | Picture a college dorm room. Laundry, food wrappers, textbooks, and a sixteen-year-old male rocking out to loud music….
Florida | The feet of Jason and Sara were found protruding from a huge, deflated helium advertising balloon….
Russia | As a child Sergei promised his grandmother he would bring her the elixir of immortality. As an adult we find Sergei pursuing immortality by licking cyanide off his palm….
Darwin Award: Faithful Flotation
Gabon | A congregation was surprised to hear their pastor insist that one could literally walk on water, if only one had enough faith….
Darwin Award: Whitewater Floaters
Arkansas | Tenacity is often advantageous to an organism. But combine tenacity with an excess of bravado, a lack of common sense, and a flooded river….
At Risk Survivor: Mushroom Man
Spain | A visitor to the mycological conference disagreed with the official assessment of
Amanita phalloides,
commonly known as the death cap mushroom….
At Risk Survivor: Splitting Headache
A man was splitting seasoned wood early one autumn. He was making light work of the logs when he came to one with a particularly large diameter….
Matt was irritable. If certain named people did not stop bothering him, he said as he loaded his paintball gun, he would shoot them….
At Risk Survivor: The Spirit Is Willing
Germany | Being frugal can be carried too far! A man flying home from holiday carrying two pints of vodka was stopped by airport security staff….
Virginia | Skeet shooters at the Amelia Wildlife Management Area were taken aback when two large males strode across the open shotgun range toward the firing line….
At Risk Survivor: Storm-Water Surfer
Australia | When flash floods turned Brisbane streets into raging rivers, a twenty-five-year-old man came frightfully close to literally sucking himself down the drain of the gene pool….
Personal Account: A Slippery Slope
UK | The cobbled slipway of the old lifeboat shed slopes straight into the river Yare. The next stop is the coast of Holland….
Personal Account: Bicycle Chain of Accidents
England | One Sunday afternoon our gang of teenagers took it into our brains that it would be fun to play on the cliffs….
California | A Los Angeles real estate attorney was skimming leaves from his pool when he noticed a palm frond caught in the power lines….
New York | Joe drunkenly drove his car directly into a ditch, knocking over a power line. How could he rescue his car without getting a DUI?
Darwin Award: Copper Kite String
Belize | Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightning equals electricity when he flew his kite in a lightning storm. However, precautions must be taken to avoid electrocution….
At Risk Survivor: Revenge of Mother Love
Father was watching a soccer cup final on TV as Mum set about her endless rounds of household chores, bemoaning the male lack of interest in doing chores….
At Risk Survivor: Orca Made Me Do It
Washington | Gabriel wanted to punish the rich white people for the death of the whales. He sought revenge by sawing through a sixty-nine-thousand-volt line….
At Risk Survivor: Molten Copper Shower
England | Police are hunting for a badly scorched copper thief after finding a hacksaw embedded in an eleven-thousand-volt power cable….
Earl was at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn, looking for a little something special for his wife. He came across a pocket Taser….
Wisconsin | Armed with several cautionary tales, a patrol officer came to speak to a drivers’ education class….
Darwin Award: Merry Pranksters
Crews were replacing aboveground telephone lines with buried lines. One morning, local farmers reported a smashed-up pickup at the work site….
Darwin Award: Stop. Look. Listen.
Florida | A woman won two tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band. But she and her friend were in for more than a concert experience….
Florida | Wearing only swim trunks and sneakers, a middle-aged man raced his motorcycle toward the Manasota Key drawbridge….
Darwin Award: Footloose in the Footwell
Australia | Police wished to question Gareth in connection with a stabbing. He evaded the interrogation by means of an accidental gunshot wound….
Darwin Award: Shopping Cart Crash
Florida | Cameron was joyriding in a shopping cart. An eyewitness said, “It’s irresponsible behavior, but what do you expect from teens?”
California | Two dirt bikes, two drivers, two passengers. Zero helmets, zero headlights, and a new moon….
At Risk Survivor: Hook, Line, and Sinker
Denmark | Exhilarated by the freedom of his first license, a young man borrowed a car from his uncle and took his cousin out for a spin….
At Risk Survivor: Mexican Divorce
Mexico | I was traveling in Mexico with my then wife. We were in a VW van equipped with a potty, and we had been quibbling all day….
At Risk Survivor: Chivalry Rebuffed
California | One afternoon, I was drinking beer and enjoying the sunshine when I heard the unmistakable
thump-thump
of a flat tire….
At Risk Survivor: Shattered Ego
New Jersey | We were walking along the lake and reminiscing about youthful summer days spent putting pennies on the train tracks….
At Risk Survivor: Never Change
Australia | Who would risk his life for some pocket change lost down a storm-water drain? A Darwin Award nominee, of course!
At Risk Survivor: Bed of Embers
Tennessee | Luke’s friends needed charcoal embers, so the twenty-two-year-old man put his burning barbecue in the bed of his pickup truck and set off down the road….
Canada | Canadian winter nights are long and usually quiet, but one exception was the night Constable Morgan responded to a drunk driver call….
UK | James was a talented poet and semiprofessional footballer who referred to himself as an unpaid condom advertisement….
At Risk Survivor: Brothers Well-Met
Maine | Two brothers were conversing with each other on their cell phones when they ran into each other….
Darwin Award: Not a Shred of Sense
An enterprising individual decided to prune his own trees rather than hire a professional. After all, the local shop rented shredders….
England | If a doctor advises a patient that he is to be covered with a flammable medical treatment, most would take this advice on board and not strike a match….
Australia | Darren was dumb even for a junkie, but what he lacked in IQ he made up in creativity….
Three young men had finished basic training and were spending their few days of leave with one’s grandmother. The privates were left alone late into the night….
An enterprising lumberman jacked up his pickup, then attached one end of a rope to a tire rim and the other end to a large felled tree….
Oklahoma | A patient had sustained serious injuries from a fishing accident. How did the normally mild sport of fishing become so dangerous?
At Risk Survivor: Hedge Your Bets
Canada | This bright chap got the idea of holding his lawn mower sideways and applying it to his hedge….