Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2 (7 page)

No matter what side of the “Nature vs. Nurture” debate you fall on, it's pretty easy to see that families can be a source of dumbness. Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? After all, who do people spend most of their time with? That's right, their families.

In a way it's reassuring. The old saying is that “a family that plays together, stays together.” Families that act stupid together also stay together, and often in the same holding pen. That's family dumbness for you!

 

H
ere's the first thing:
of all the people to attempt a citizen's arrest upon, an actual sheriff's deputy is not one of them. “Adam,” a citizen of McMinnville, Tennessee, nevertheless attempted to arrest off-duty Deputy Lt. Stan Hillis for speeding. After pulling up behind Lt. Hillis's parked civilian car, one thing inevitably led to another and it was
Adam
who was arrested, for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and evading arrest. In one of those interesting twists, this all went down right across from the local jail, so the deputy and Adam didn't have far to go.

Adam's one phone call went to his mom, “Abby,” who drove to the jail with 17-year-old son “Bret” in tow. Once they had arrived, Bret allegedly decided that it might be a fine idea to slap one of the deputies. And now, words of wisdom from Sheriff Jackie Matheny: “If you strike an officer, you're going to jail 100 percent of the time.” And of course, Bret was conveniently and already there—another transportation problem easily solved.

Then Abby got in on the act. Having both her cubs in the slammer aroused Abby's mother bear instincts. She allegedly became very loud and refused to obey the orders of law enforcement officials, otherwise known as disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Mama bear got caged, too.

So who was left in this family menagerie? Why, “Al,” the family patriarch. He showed up and also allegedly became very disorderly and uncooperative, so much so that out came the tasers—
zap!
—and now you had the entire family cooling its
heels behind bars. That's where they stayed for the next three hours before they made bail.

When family therapists say families should spend more time doing things together, this really
isn't
what they mean. Try Yahtzee instead. And don't attempt any citizen's arrests while playing.

Source:
wkrn.com
, Associated Press,
newschannel5.com

 

W
e're the last people in the world
to say that when it looks like one of your kids is missing, you shouldn't ask for (and receive) a full-blown search and rescue party. There isn't a parent alive who doesn't live in fear of their kid just disappearing, and then facing gut-gnawing anxiety until the child is found safe and unharmed. So, please, if the kid has gone missing, call out the cops. And the dogs. And the neighbors. And the psychics. But please, before you do all that, you might want to check behind the sofa first.

“Ann,” of Morecambe, Lancashire, England, had lost track of her three-year-old right round teatime (that's late afternoon, for the Yanks); she assumed that her sister, who had gone across the street with her seven-year-old, had also brought the younger child with her. But when Ann went to retrieve her children, the youngest was nowhere to be found. Naturally, Ann was concerned (well, frantic, actually) and called the police.

Thereupon commenced an admirable flurry of activity from the local constabulary and the neighborhood residents. They even called in a helicopter to hover over the area and to broadcast a description of the little girl. For three hours police and neighbors searched to no avail. And then, someone had the bright idea to look behind Ann's couch. There was the sleeping three-year-old wrapped in a blanket. What was the kid doing, sleeping behind a couch? Well, you know kids. They're always doing something weird. And apparently the kid was a
deep sleeper: “My house was swarming with police and [she] didn't wake up once,” Ann told reporters.

Total cost of the search-and-rescue? About $50,000. “I was so relieved she was safe and well but did feel bad about that,” Ann said, of the cost of the baby-finding mission. Let's hope they don't send her the bill, or that three-year-old might be out of a college education.

Source:
Scotsman.com
,
The Sun
(UK),
Morecambe Today
(UK)

 

I
f you've ever put a preschool picture by one of your kids on the fridge,
you know while you might believe the picture is priceless, a genuine art appraiser might—and no offense to your kid—beg to disagree (unless by “priceless,” you meant to imply “worthless”). With that in mind, come along down under, to Australia, and to an “art auction” at the ritzy St. Catherine's school, in Toorak, Melbourne.

The “artwork” in question: a large, colorful painting done by members of the preschool class at St. Catherine's—lots of animals and people in typically preschool representations. It wasn't a Picasso, in other words (unless Pablo was having a terrible day). But millionaire John Ilhan's young daughter wanted it, or so he said in an interview with the
Herald Sun
newspaper, so he made an offer for it.

And that's when another parent stepped in and (as Ilhan tells it) informed him that she had deeper pockets than he. And then to prove it, she raised the bid on the painting. Well, apparently Ilhan was not the sort of man who made millions—even in Australian dollars—by turning down a challenge. So he and the woman promptly started a bidding war until finally Ilhan decided that thing had “got seriously out of hand.”

The final bid? It was $75,000 in Australian dollars (about $53,000 U.S.), and Ilhan's nemesis got the painting. That chunk of change would be enough to buy art from actual Australian artists—famous and
good
ones, even. But you
know how excited people get when they have more competitive spirit (and money) than sense.

Interestingly, the bidding war actually seems to have been more about the getting than the having, since the winning bidder eventually returned the artwork to the school. It seems unlikely that the artwork would ever sell for that much again. But then again, maybe it will. Now it's famous, and there are always collectors who are willing to one-up someone else. Let's hope the fame doesn't go to the young artists' heads. In the meantime, maybe you'll want to get that refrigerator art appraised after all.

Source:
Herald Sun
(Australia)

 

T
here are many different types of burial practices in the world,
performed by all the various cultures that exist on this globe of ours. There are mausoleums, graves, cremations, funeral pyres, burials at sea, and even the option of leaving your body to science so medical students can get more familiar with your internal organs than you ever were. All of them are beautiful in their own way, except maybe that one with the medical students, but even
that
has some instructional value. But as far as we know,
no
culture advises sticking your father's corpse in an air-conditioned storage locker for three months.

And yet, that's what “Len” did after his father passed on (from natural causes) in a motel in Osceola County, Florida, in March 2004. To be fair to Len, even
he
knew that jamming dad into a storage locker wasn't the right thing to do. But Len was in a bind: he'd heard that funerals are expensive these days (and they are: the average one goes for about six grand), and he didn't have that kind of cash lying around. But he
did
have the $68.48 a month for a 5-by-10-foot storage locker. So, after wrapping up pop in a drop cloth and a garbage bag and telling his mom that he was taking her deceased spouse to a funeral home, he slipped his father into the locker. For three months.

We realize you're probably not a forensic scientist or anything, but take an educated guess here: what do
you
think happens to a human body after three months in a storage locker? If you guessed “I'm pretty sure it would start to smell—really
bad,
” you're ready for a guest shot on
CSI Miami.
Indeed, dad's decomposing body started to smell—really bad. The managers of the storage facility (who did not
know what was in the storage locker) kept calling Len to tell him he needed to check his storage space because it smelled like something died in there. Perhaps, they were thinking maybe just a rodent.

Realizing he couldn't keep dad in storage for much longer, Len made a decision. To come clean and properly bury dad? Well, no. His next step was to transfer dad from the storage locker to a rented U-Haul truck (“Adventures in Moving” indeed!) and then park that truck in front of his own house. Len failed to appreciate that a body that smells bad in an air-conditioned storage locker doesn't smell any better in the back of a U-Haul baking in the sun. Soon the neighbors started complaining about the smell. After confiding in a friend, Len eventually came clean to the authorities and cut a deal with them to properly put his poor dad to rest.

It turns out that if you can't afford to bury someone, generally speaking your local authorities can help you find a way to do it, since it's not a good idea to leave bodies lying around—stuffed in storage lockers or otherwise. Give it some thought before you have to lie to the storage facility manager about what you're keeping in that space you're renting.

Source:
Local10.com
,
wftv.com
,
Orlando Sentinel

 

W
e've got a personality test for you.
You're at the beach, when a guy comes up to you with an infant in a duffel bag and asks you if you'd be interested in buying. Do you:

          
1.
  
Haggle on a price;

          
2.
  
Smile weakly at the guy's clearly lame sense of humor and walk away briskly; or

          
3.
  
Call the cops on the sick loser?

No, no, you don't really have to answer; we know all of you picked
3
(
right?
). And the reason for this is pretty obvious: sure, it's funny when Monty Python sells off a passel of children for medical experiments in
The Meaning of Life,
but in the real world, the idea of jocularly suggesting to strangers that you'd be willing to part with your baby, who you keep in a duffel bag, is creepy and wrong.
Everybody
know this.

Well, almost everyone. Then there's “Joe,” a young Pennsylvania father. Joe and his wife were at the beach in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, with their four-month-old son, when the wind whipped up and started blowing sand around. To protect their child from the elements, the couple advisedly placed their infant in an open duffel bag. And that's when Joe got the “bright” idea of walking up to total strangers, showing them the incongruous sight of a baby in a bag, and asking them if they'd like to buy the baby. What yuks!

Yes, a good time was had by all, or at least by one, until the police showed up, charged Joe and his wife with child
endangerment, and briefly put the baby in the care of Child Protective Services. It seems that approaching random strangers and telling them that you're interested in unloading your baby to them makes people call the police to tell them all about you because they
believe
you. They have no idea you're just some idiot with a really bad sense of humor. They don't know you at all. That's why they're
called
“strangers.”

After a nice long conversation with Joe and his wife, the local police were eventually convinced that they didn't actually have baby-sellers on their hands, just people with a mal-adjusted sense of what's funny. “Right now we're leaning toward a conclusion that it was not an authentic offer,” a police spokesman told
The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“But if he thought he was being funny, it sure wasn't very humorous.” Well, it's kind of funny
now.
Just not in the way Joe intended.

Source:
The Philadelphia Inquirer,
Associated Press, ABC News