Famous last words.

Hey everybody, watch this.

(I am not laughing. Three children are motherless. But jeez: “Somebody lit it and it didn’t go off immediately. She looked over the top of it and it went off.” A cautionary tale for the Age of Blowing Shit Up. Life is not a Road Runner cartoon.)

Posted at 12:09 pm in Current events |
 

23 responses to “Famous last words.”

  1. brian stouder said on July 3, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    At the risk of sounding like Blame the Victim – and although the article is stone silent (so to speak) on the subject – there’s gotta be alcohol involved here, somewhere

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  2. ashley said on July 3, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    I’m just glad it wasn’t a Southerner involved.

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  3. kathy t said on July 3, 2007 at 2:23 pm

    Melvindale? Taylor? Odds are it was a Southerner.

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  4. Dorothy said on July 3, 2007 at 2:25 pm

    Dumbass-ness knows no region I suppose.

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  5. ashley said on July 3, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    “Odds are it was a Southerner”.

    Bigot.

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  6. Judy said on July 3, 2007 at 3:13 pm

    Four more famous last words:
    “Here, hold my beer….”

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  7. LA mary said on July 3, 2007 at 3:32 pm

    Stupid knows no geographic boundaries.

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  8. kathy t said on July 3, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    “Bigot.”

    I used to live in Deetroit. My oh-so-southern neighbors were always talking about “Taylortucky.” I was just playing the demographics, for cryin’ out loud.

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  9. kathy t said on July 3, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    But hey! Maybe I AM a bigot. The neighbors were from Alabama so they probably thought Kentuckians were Yanks. And that was a million years ago and Taylortucky’s probably all gentrified by now.

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  10. LA mary said on July 3, 2007 at 4:43 pm

    I didn’t realize Dorothy said the same thing. Sorry Dorothy.

    I was reading and typing while on hold, which is how I spend half my day.

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  11. Kim said on July 3, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    A brother-in-law (a NY-er via IL living in CA) has a predilection for explosive devices and once set off a number of fireworks, commercial grade, down the in-laws’ quiet midwestern street. One ricocheted and nearly took off my then-8-y-o’s head. I was freaking when this display started, and I totally lost it when the missile narrowly missed the eldest’s head.
    Oh, btw: the offender is a pastor.

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  12. nancy said on July 3, 2007 at 6:03 pm

    Her friends and co-workers were unable to reach and help Barse until the display had completed its launch and firing. Hayse said the efforts were useless because the injuries were “catastrophic.”

    I did think this would have been a great “Six Feet Under” opener, not to mention a real challenge for Rico.

    I guess the investigation will concentrate on how people like this get commercial-grade explosives, like your brother-in-law, Kim. If only.

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  13. LA mary said on July 3, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    I thought about six feet under too. It reminded me of the divorcee standing up in the limo, head through the sunroof.

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  14. Dorothy said on July 3, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    That one, Mary, is one of my two favorite openings. I can’t decide between the divorcee celebrating in the limo, or the wife who can’t stand to listen to her husband’s kvetching any longer, and whacks him with the frying pan right after she serves him his eggs.

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  15. Undercover Black Man said on July 3, 2007 at 8:36 pm

    Two words: “Natural. Selection.”

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  16. Connie said on July 4, 2007 at 8:42 am

    I also thought of the divorcee in the limo. But my favorite opening was when the sex show blow up dolls got loose from the truck and floated upward and a woman leaped out of her car screaming “the rapture, take me, take me” and promptly got smacked in traffic.

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  17. Ricardo said on July 4, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    Today, I will have to give my wife’s dog a sedative. Fireworks freak him out so much, I think he will have a heart attack. Even though fireworks are banned in this town, a lot of people ignore this law on the 4th.

    We live close enough to Disneyland to hear and see fireworks every night in the summer and on weekends the rest of the year. We are even closer and louder to fireworks at the baseball stadium, they have fireworks every Friday during home games. Now, Disney drags out the show for about 20 minutes instead of the previous 10 minutes from years ago. 20 minutes of insane barking for us.

    Needless to say, I am not amused by pyrotechnics any more. The folks in SMelvindale are still starved for amusement, I guess. I used to live next door to, and work in SMelvindale for many years, and still picture it as a pretty grim place.

    Best place to watch fireworks is on the river, or near water. You see everything twice, and chances are you won’t see anything get blowed up.

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  18. Connie said on July 4, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    Ricardo, my dog also has a fireworks problem. A church nearby occasionally does a 4th picnic and fireworks. I took the dog on the leash around the block and the fireworks started. Dog laid down on ground and whimpered. I finally had to carry him home. (Good thing he is small.) With all my neighbors out to watch the fireworks laughing.

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  19. brian stouder said on July 4, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    When it comes to dogs, let me just say that my consciousness is being raised (if not my understanding). I was surprised by all the dogs we saw at the rest stop/picnic area at the Sidling Hill cut – maybe a half dozen different families had their dogs. And lately, I’m noticing more and more Paris Hilton wannabes that drive along with their small dog in their laps (just say a lady today, driving an SUV and with her dog at the wheel).

    That said, our 3 year old human being dislikes flash-bang fireworks intensely; so we’re not big on those either

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  20. Dorothy said on July 5, 2007 at 6:49 am

    Well, better a dog in the lap than a child. A co-worker was telling a few of us about an incident that happened just over 3 years ago to her. She had a new car (owned it two weeks) in her driveway, and one of her neighbors was in the habit of letting one of his 4 yr. old twin boys sit on his lap while he drove around the cul-de-sac. This one night the kid was on his knees, and Daddy was beside him, working the pedals. He noticed the car was picking up speed and wouldn’t make the bend, so he thought he hit the brakes to slow it down. Nope. Hit the gas, panicked, and drove right into her new car, pushed it into the garage, and then everything went right into the kitchen, pushing the stove across the room and making the fridge fall over on one of the cars. WHY do people do this – let the kids take the wheel?! How dumb do you have to be not to forsee the possible consequences??

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  21. Bob said on July 5, 2007 at 7:37 am

    “How dumb do you have to be not to forsee the possible consequences??”

    The kids-driving issue is only one manifestation of a larger issue that you brought up, Dorothy.

    People seem to have a diminishing capability to grasp the concept of consequences; maybe it’s related to shrinking attention spans.

    To many people, reality seems to be divided into two different realms, stuff you do and stuff that happens to you. They don’t seem to comprehend that there’s any connection between the two; they obey their impulses, and lament their bad luck.

    I recall hearing a slovenly, rude waitress complaining to one of her coworkers that her tight-ass customers didn’t tip her. She didn’t intend to start being nice to other people until they started being nice to her.

    I heard a homeless young woman relate the story of her bad luck; her landlord evicted her because she couldn’t pay her rent. It wasn’t her fault, because she had been fired from her job for failing to show up. She couldn’t help missing work because she was in jail, which was terribly unfair and excessive considering the purse she had shoplifted was only priced at $5.

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  22. brian stouder said on July 5, 2007 at 9:53 am

    Dorothy – agreed – and if the fellow’s air-bag had detonated, he would have had to go looking for his child’s missing head.

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  23. Dorothy said on July 5, 2007 at 10:26 am

    Brian this co-worker did mention some weird quirk about why the airbag did not go off. You’re correct – I think she said it would have hit the kid mid-throat.

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