The Darwin Awards

You've been waiting for them with bated breath, so without further ado here are the 2008  Darwin Awards.

Eighth Place:  In  Detroit , a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

Seventh Place:  A 49-year-old  San Francisco stockbroker, who 'totally zoned when he ran,' accidentally, jogged off a 100-foot high cliff on his daily run.

Sixth Place: While at the beach, Daniel Jones, 21, dug an 8 foot hole for protection from the wind and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom when it t collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to get him out but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Fifth Place:  Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed as he fell through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth to keep his hands free rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

Fourth Place: Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

Third Place:  After stepping around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into H&J Leather & Firearms intent on robbing the store. The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up! and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, and several customers also drew their guns and fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

HONORABLE MENTION: Paul Stiller, 47, and his wife Bonnie were bored just driving around at 2 A.M. so they lit a quarter stick of dynamite to toss out the window to see what would happen. Apparently they failed to notice the window was closed.

RUNNER UP:  Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from a local bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable, lay near by. They secured one end around Bingham's leg and then tied the other to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. Bingham's foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER IS...

Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (  Paderborn ,  Germany ) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief.  Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded.  The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him.  It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves... 'S### happens'

IT ALWAYS SEEMS IMPORTANT TO THANK THESE PEOPLE FOR REMOVING THEMSELVES FROM THE GENE POOL

Okay, I'm in...

The first three people to leave a comment on this post will receive something made by me. However, there are some limitations:

1. I make no guarantee that you will like what I make.
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done this year.
4. You have no clue what it is going to be - cards, bows, a bag, frame or a little invention of my own. I may bake something and mail it to you .Who knows? Not you that’s for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. It may blow your mind!

Here’s the catch, if you choose to do this. You must post this on your blog and be ready to make something for three people too. This will be fun! When you receive the fabulous item I make you, you must post a picture of it on your blog. Now time to comment and start thinking about what you will be making for someone else! 

Ta DA!

This has certainly not been a good month or six weeks to be Susie. I had no idea when I got my wisdom teeth removed that it would be a 2-month ordeal till it was over. I will be on this antibiotic for another 2 or 3 weeks, and it seems to be sapping a lot of my energy. Or maybe it's the infection itself. I don't know. Plus the pain makes me tense up and then I end up with a migraine. It's getting better, but it's not been a picnic that's for sure. I have continued going to work and most of church (though to be completely honest, I have not been able to sit through the whole three hours yet), but I ended up missing David's and Sarah's reception in Michigan, which I felt terrible about. The surgeon felt bad about that too but he said with how severe the infection was he could not wait even through the weekend. He didn't realize I would be in too much pain to travel, but that's just how it worked out. I was popping percocet about every 2 hours. (I'm allowed one or two every 4-6 hours, so the way I see it that's the same as one every 2 hours if the pain is bad enough.  Hopefully that's not cheating too much.)  And I'm not supposed to take aleve or ibuprofen but I was so desperate that I did it anyway. (Percocet already has tylenol in it.) Anyway, the thought of going up and down in a plane was enough to make me almost cry in anticipation of the pressure changes, so I decided to stay home. Of course there's no way to tell at this point whether I would have been okay with it, but when something tells you to avoid something, it's best to heed the warning. It's when we ignore warnings that we are slapped in the face and we say, "Man I wish I would have listened to that prompting…"

When I went in for my first checkup after the oral surgeon re-opened me and scraped the infected bone away, he made it very clear that it had been an emergency that couldn't wait. In fact, I've been back for a few more checkups just to make sure the antibiotic is battling the bacteria sufficiently, and each time I go in another one of his hygenists tells me that they had to come in and watch part of the procedure because they didn't see this kind of thing very often. Woo hoo, I'm a celebrity.

Other than that, life is good.  I am toying with the idea of visiting Carebear and her family, and the newlyweds, for the holiday weekend coming up. 

Fun things to fill out

6 names you go by: (this is not easy!)
  1. Susie
  2. Mom
  3. Grandma
  4. Suse
  5. Susan (when I’m in trouble)
  6. Mommy (in the past)

3 things you are wearing right now 
  1.  Crocs with Mickey charms
  2.  Earrings
  3.  Blue sweater

3 Things you want very badly at the moment:
 1.  Dry socket (wisdom tooth removal) to stop hurting and be all healed
 2.  Whole house clean and tidy
 3.  More money.  J

3 people who will fill this out: 
 1. Carolyn
 2. Audrey
 3. Bridget?

2 things you did last night:
 1.  Watched current episode of All My children
 2.  At a tostada from taco bell with Gary

2 things you ate today:
 1. Banana
 2. Cheese

2 people you last talked to on the phone:
  1. Carolyn
  2. Gary

2 things you are going to do tomorrow: 
 1. Catch up at work
 2. Watch American Idol

3 favorite drinks:
  1. Pero
  2. Water (filtered)
  3. Crystal Lite
 

Hopefully this too will pass...

Today I got the happy news that I have "dry socket."  I don't even like the sound of that.  They have treated it by putting in a little piece of gauze soaked in something that smells and tastes like cloves.  I'm getting sick of the taste and smell.  Tomorrow morning I go back in and they'll re-pack it.  :::sigh:::

Anyway, no work for me tomorrow.  The amount of narcotics I'm taking for the pain precludes driving.  Or doing anything productive, really.  

I also have four staples in my head, to be removed next week.  I had a mole removed about a month ago and it came back as a basal cell, so it had to be removed better.  And Chaelomen of course had to inspect the staple job.  My new nickname is the "Bride of Frankenstein."

 

 

I'm losing my wisdom...

Let me start by saying that every time I visit the dentist he gives me a hard time about my unpulled wisdom teeth.  (The two on the bottom.)  Since they really haven't caused any problems I have cheerfully ignored him while reminding him that he could not badger me about it with much credibility since he also still has two of his.  However, the last time I went he said that there is enough bone loss around my wisdom teeth that food is going to start creeping back behind the gums so that it will not be possible for me to clean them. He said the result would be an abscess that would cause the loss of several other molars in addition to the wisdom teeth, and it'd be an emergency situation then, and a horrible, painful experience. So now I am left with the lesser of the two evils, getting my wisdom teeth out.

When I went to the oral surgeon, the office did one of those panoramic (and really, REALLY flattering… Makes your head look like a medicine ball) xrays and said that the roots are solidly fused to the jaw bone and that they are very close to the nerves. He is hoping to extract them without damaging the nerves (which would result in possible numbness and paralysis of the facial muscles which could be permanent) but if he gets in there and it doesn't look possible he'll just saw off the tooth a little lower than the gum line and let the gums grow over what's left of the tooth. That also sounds horrible. Thank goodness I will be unconscious throughout this. I have a vision of a hacksaw in my mouth, and I'm hoping he doesn't end up sawing my mouth open like a pez dispenser. I'll end up looking like the Jack Nicholson version of the Joker. I'll be off work until I can function without pain medication. 

Oh, and what is it about hearing that someone has upcoming oral surgery that invites others to share their own oral surgery horror stories?  I would rather hear them after I'm healed up, thank you very much. 

I think I'm getting too old for this kind of thing...

I'm not working as quickly as I usually do today, I did a major stupidity yesterday. About a half hour before I was due to go home (and I was the only one in the office) an employee came in chatting on his cell phone with my boss. The employee had left his badge in the security office and he was pretty desperate to get it back but everyone had gone home for the day. My boss asked me to try to get in there and retrieve it for him if I could.

I got into the outer office okay, but inside there were several cubicles (two with locking doors) for the security folks. The cubicle walls are about 7 feet high is all, not nearly all the way to the ceiling. I stepped onto a chair and my head was over the top and I could see the badge clearly. So I scooted a table over, but that still wasn't enough to get over the wall, so I scooted over a wheeled contraption that the security folks use for their coat rack, which has a shelf at the top. The guy who lost his badge held this steady while I climbed onto it. Then I swung my leg over, and he's thinking to himself, "Wow, she's pretty good," after which he heard a big WHUMP as I fell to the ground on the other side. Ouch.

But not to worry, I was able to slow my descent by sliding my face against the inner wall of the cubicle, which was thoughtfully lined with some sort of sandpaper-textured burlap. Since I'd had the air knocked out of me (landed on my chest) I wasn't able to get up for a few moments as he desperately cried, "Are you okay?" while he's thinking, "I can't get in there to see if she's alive, the door is still locked!" Anyway, I finally pushed myself into a sitting position and unlocked the door, then I struggled to my feet, went over to the desk, picked up his badge and handed it to him. Then I sat down for a few moments to get my breath back, while he's anxiously asking, "Do you want me to get you a cold cloth?" By this time I was feeling much better, so I said no and we put back all the furniture. He mumbled something about hoping there were no security cameras that caught it. Amen to that.

Anyway, when I got home I looked at where my arm was hurting and there is a lovely bruise there so I wore long sleeves today. I also looked at my knees and they're a beautiful shade of blue and purple as well. Plus I've got another big bruise on my left calf. And when I took off my makeup last night I noticed I have a bruise across the bridge of my nose as well. :::sigh:::  And this morning when I woke up I was incredibly sore. 

I'm obviously not as athletic as I am in my imagination, because that turned out so much better in my head than it did in reality.  But I have to say that for a security office, it wasn't that hard to get in and I take a sort of perverse satisfaction in that.