The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction (35 page)

Where these wires were concerned, fate was not kind.

The tail of the aircraft clipped the wires and the plane took a nose-dive. Instead of making a soft landing on the grassy verge, it greeted the ground with enthusiasm, killing both occupants. Only then were the sleepy Chilliwack residents able to return to their interrupted dreams.

 

Reference:
Chilliwack Progress
newspaper, edition unknown.

DECEMBER 2008, FLORIDA | An engine company sent a request for the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department to extinguish a routine trash fire. The District Chief for the fire department said, “The lieutenant said, ‘
You gotta see this.
’” Everyone wanted to share a piece of the action. An intoxicated group of men had decided that throwing paint cans into their fifty-five-gallon drum fire was fun, but not fun enough. They escalated the excitement by tossing in not one, but three twenty-pound propane cylinders.

The fun went south when one cylinder violently vented toward an unfortunate reveler. We cannot reveal the patient’s name due to HIPAA laws, but he was transported to a burn unit for attention to his “party favors.” The gene pool is still at risk from these rocket scientists, as the close call was not fatal.

Reference: A medic acting as District Chief in the incident

 

 

29 DECEMBER 2009, MEXICO | Sun, sea, sand, well-built hombres in small bathing suits, tropical drinks—Mazatlán is everything you could wish for on a long No -Freakin’-Snow! winter holiday. Boats are rented, sunscreen slathered on, rum-related judgment-impairing drinks poured, what could possibly go sideways?

Enter Oscar, thirty-four, Scooter, twenty-two, and their fifty-eight-year-old mom, Taffy. Their favorite warm-weather activity is water skiing, especially after the consumption of two or three drinks with paper umbrellas. If the Olympics makes Near-Death Experience a medal event, these three will clean up.

The lack of a tow rope vexed the colorful trio until one child of Bacchus recruited the others to execute a plan to MAKE TOW ROPE so they could go skiing. The ingredients for this makeshift replacement were deep-sea fishing line, the patience to braid fifty yards of doom-in-the-making, and a handle to affix to the rope. Taffy’s always up for sacrificing her bikini top for a good cause, so that was the tow rope handle.

It was like watching a train wreck unfold. The boat engine revved, Taffy jumped in, Leo was at the wheel. Scooter put on the water skis, bobbed into position, and shouted, “Hit it!” The boat reached warp nine before the braided line suffered what NASA would call a catastrophic failure, snapping in half somewhere along its length, coming apart at the bikini handle, the hitch, and Poseidon only knows where else.

Out-of-control Scooter was sent flying over a low boat ramp and into the open hold of a fishing boat. A highly irate Mexican fisherman threw him and his skis back overboard. Taffy got spanked with fishing line lashes across her back, and Leo narrowly missed plowing into a tourist boat due to the combination of excess speed and sudden loss of drag.

Turns out, tickets for “disturbing the peace” and “public drunkenness” add up to $130 in fines and a good scolding from the judge, who pointed out the obvious at length: This could have been tragic, Scooter could have broken his neck, and Leo could have sunk a tourist boat that was chock-full of little kids.

As for me, this year I’m gonna stay home and shovel the driveway.

 

Reference: blrqul of Ogden, Utah

What are the Darwin Awards? • Who can win one? What are the rules? • Is there an actual, physical Darwin Award? • Are any winners alive? • Where do you get your stories? • How do you confirm the stories? • Have you ever been wrong? • How many submissions do you get? • Are the winners decided by vote? • Why aren’t
these
buckets of testosterone on your list? • Who writes the great Science essays? • Why are Science essays in a humor book? • What is the history of this dubious distinction? • The Darwin Awards are written by . . . a woman!? • What do the families think? • I have kids. Am I safe? • Are humans really evolving? • Isn’t there something beautiful about moronic creativity? • Why so many men? • Why do we laugh at death? • What inspired you to do this? • What are your aspirations? • How many stories? How many books? How many more? • Are you making a movie, musical, or TV show? • Do you drive while using a cell phone? • What were those Five (5) Rules, again?

Heroic service to humanity deserves recognition and respect. To that end, we have created the Darwin Award, named for evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin, to honor those who willingly sacrifice their own lives to the process of natural selection. The Darwin Awards recognize individuals who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from it in a sublimely idiotic fashion, thereby ensuring that future generations are descended from one less idiot.

 

Darwin Awards: Improving the Human Race One Idiot at a Time
This tongue-in-cheek award is based on the premise that the human species is still evolving, and we see this every time someone manages to kill himself in a really clueless way. An unfortunate loss to be sure, but observe that the human race just got
smarter
by one idiot. Charles Darwin would call that evolution.

Here’s a toast to you, sir, for your noble self-sacrifice.

—Wendy

 

The Darwin Awards are not legends. They are true, and that is what makes them so fascinating.

Wendy debated philosophy with readers and fans concerning the merits of specific nominees such as wrestler Owen Hart and the Shaker cult that forbade sex, and philosophical concerns such as identical twins, age, inbreeding, etc. These conversations distilled down to Five Simple Rules:

To win a Darwin Award, an
adult
must eliminate
himself
from the
gene pool
in an
astonishingly
stupid way that is verifiably
true
.