Throwback Thursday From Feb. 2015 – “And The Award Goes To…”

Throwback Thursday From Feb. 2015 – “And The Award Goes To…”

I WAS JUST RANDOMLY TIPTOEING through the Internet the other day when I came across a news item that made me stop.

“Police say a 55-year-old southwestern Michigan woman who died after accidentally shooting herself in the head in January was adjusting a handgun in her bra holster at the time.”

I’m familiar with the practice of carrying a concealed weapon, but I would think that you would want the gun to be easily accessible. But, then again, I wasn’t there to see just how accessible things were with her. I’m glad I wasn’t there. I would have called the 911 emergency line, but I think I might have had trouble explaining what happened.

Honestly, I never even knew that an item called a “bra holster,” existed. I guess I’ve led a sheltered life. I do know that I would not want to spend time with a woman who has one or feels it necessary to wear one. I would also think that such a holster would be obvious – unless, of course, she was to wear two of them (for her matching .38s , no doubt.).

I’m wagering that this poor woman’s demise is going to put her on the fast track for winning a Darwin Award.

The Darwin Awards are given, posthumously, to people who have managed to kill themselves in extraordinarily stupid ways, thereby giving support to Charles Darwin’s theory of the “Survival of the fittest.”

A few years ago I was working for the Pacific Gas & Electric Company when a man made a valiant effort to win his own Darwin Award.

One of the company power plants had an ongoing problem with people breaking in, almost every night, trying to find something worth stealing.

Late one evening, a gentleman scaled the fence and was sneaking around the power plant. His eyes lit up when he saw a large copper bar just within reach. When he grabbed the bar the rest of him lit up as well. He learned a basic lesson: copper is a wonderful conductor of electricity. The copper bar he coveted was charged with several thousand volts of electricity.

The gentleman, and they knew it was a gentleman from the various body parts that were still identifiable, did not survive. He did not survive intact. The tsunami of electrical energy that coursed through his body caused him to explode – literally. The power plant night crew was not happy that they had to clean up the – the – what was left. They used a shovel and a garden hose.

Perhaps it was Divine Intervention that kept this fellow and the pistol packin’ mama in Michigan from getting together. I can barely imagine what their offspring might have been like – accident prone and highly flammable, to be sure.

Another Darwin Honoree I read about could be a relative of at least one of them.

A 2014 Winner, from Kenya, is the chap who decided that he wanted to take a “selfie,” sharing the frame with an elephant. Many people take pictures holding their dog or cat, but this guy wanted to pose with the largest land animal in the world. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure how this worked out. He wanted the picture, the elephant didn’t. The elephant proceeded to drive this idiot into the Kenyan soil like he was a tent peg.

I’d kind of like to see if he got his selfie. I’m sorry. That was tasteless.

I’m sure we all have someone in our life who, given the proper circumstances, might end up with a Darwin Award. I just hope it isn’t me.

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