Joke: Idiots among us

[Eric Thelin <eric@generation-i.com>]

Some idiots among us:

1.  Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport
hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.

2.  A man in Johannesburg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the
face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans
off each other's head.

3.  A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed
its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the
job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory
industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor
injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted,
and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a
chair while watching the film.

4.  The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons,
setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.

5.  A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St.Louis, but by the
time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus
and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.

6.  Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book
about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be
copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a
worker confused the copier with The e shredder.

7.  A convict broke out of jail in Washington DC, then a few days later
accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery.  At lunch, he went out
for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged.  Police
officers recognized his name and arrested him as he returned to the
courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.

8.  Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a
metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy
machine.  The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police
pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling
the truth.  Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect
confessed.

9.  When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand
over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the
police.  They still refused, so the robber called the police and was
arrested.

10.  A Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking," stole a
steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard
and brought the vehicle to a stop.

11.  An award should go to the United Airlines gate agent in Denver for
being smart and funny, and making her point, when confronted with a
passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo: During the final days at
Denver's old Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was canceled.  A
single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.  Suddenly
an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk.  He slapped his ticket down
on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST
CLASS."  The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help
you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to
work something out."  The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so
that the passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?"
Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address
microphone.  "May I have your attention please?"  she began, her voice
bellowing throughout the terminal.  "We have a passenger here at the gate
WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity,
please come to the gate." With the folks behind him in line laughing
hysterically, the man glared at the United agent, gritted his teeth and
swore "(Expletive) you." without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm
sorry, sir, but you'll have to stand in line for that, too." The man 
retreated as the people in the terminal applauded loudly.