What a way to go plus getting wrapped in your job.
by John
TODAY'S ODDITIES
Chivalry Is Dead
Three men fell to their deaths into a 40-foot latrine pit in Mombasa,
Kenya, in March, all because the first man chivalrously climbed down a
ladder into the pit to retrieve a woman's cell phone but fell off and
suffocated. The other two men then climbed down, but also fell off,
attempting to rescue the one before him. A search crew finally brought
up the three bodies four hours later, but no cell phone. [BBC News,
3-14-03]
The Taxpayers' Money At Work
A New York Daily News investigation revealed in March that the Postal
Service has spent at least $3.6 million of stamp buyers' money in
recent years sending its Inspector General staff through a series of
executive conferences that featured exercises in wrapping each other
in toilet paper and aluminum foil, building sand castles in freezing
weather at the beach, and freely making animal noises, all because the
conference sponsors convinced Inspector General Karla Corcoran that
those exercises would improve job performance and make the staff work
together better. Other therapeutic tasks included dressing in cat
costumes and asking make-believe wizards for advice. [New York Daily
News, 3-9-03]
The Heimlich Hoax
A 36-year-old man from Arcadia, Fla., checked himself into a
counseling clinic in March after being identified as the one who had
been pretending in public to be choking on food and persuading women
to grasp him in the Heimlich maneuver, after which he would hug them
lavishly and attempt clumsily to develop a relationship. A sheriff's
spokesman in Charlotte County, site of the most recent reports, said
the man probably had done nothing illegal. (Novelist Chuck Palahniuk,
author of "Fight Club," recently published "Choke," whose storyline
roughly matches the man's actions, but apparently some Florida
incidents predated the book's publication.) [Port Charlotte
Sun-Herald, 3-3-03; Tampa Tribune-Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 3-12-03]
Posted on Apr 11, 2003, 12:00 PM from IP address 216.54.110.121