One thing about this crazy world of ours, it just keeps on getting crazier. There is no shortage of the wacky, weird and wild stories around our spinning globe, probably because it’s inhabited by humans, who, let’s face it, for being the smartest species on the planet, can be pretty wacky, weird and wild.
So, what’s in the back-page human weirdness headlines this month? How about: “Love Letters Become Toilet Paper”. It seems a recycled toilet paper company is offering a long-awaited service for bitter exes who have had their hearts broken. It’s called the “Flush Your Ex” program, and in honour of the recent Valentine’s Day a jilted lover can send in all those old love letters sitting sadly in their bottom drawer.
Then the company will “magically transform their BS into TP”. Yes, they will make rolls of toilet paper out of those once-precious letters that are finally ending up where they belong. The Dear Johns, if you will, are getting flushed down the John.
If toilet paper love letter rejection doesn’t ‘move’ you, how about being rejected by the Guinness World Record awards people for using the wrong matches? For EIGHT years! That’s right, a French fellow named Richard Plaud spent eight long years building a seven-metre-high, extremely detailed replica of the Eiffel Tower. That’s almost as high as your average telephone pole! Oh, and he made it completely out of matches. 706,900 matches, to be precise. But his World Record application was rejected.
Now, it was in fact the biggest and best in the Tallest Eiffel Tower Ever Made Using Matchsticks category, but Monsieur Plaud was disqualified because the rules state that the matches must be “commercially available”. It seems Richard started out using regular store bought matches, but made a deal with a company to sell him 15 kilogram boxes of headless matches.
First of all, Rich was being admirably safe and smart in choosing matches that wouldn’t combust and destroy his tower and possibly his entire neighborhood, and [B.] who knew GWR people had rules about non-exploding matchsticks?!
Back in good ole North America, there’s something fishy in Provo, Utah. Fish-taping to be specific. Fish-taping to car windshields and ATMs to be even more specific. Pardon?? That’s right — a 17-year-old was just arrested for taping dead fish to things around the town. Over a dozen of them, stuck to stuff with duct tape. But why, you may ask, and I wouldn’t blame you.
It’s de-bait-able, but authorities speculate that since all the putrid pastings were posted on social media, the Fish-Sticker Kid might just have been seeking some sort of fin-tastic fame. One way or another, the article claims he is gill-ty as charged.
And finally, back over the pond into Moscow, another whack-job has risen to the surface like a dead fish. Dr. Alexander Kudryavtsev has been fired. Until two weeks ago, Dr. K. was the prestigious head of the Russian Academy of Science’s Vavilov Institute of General Genetics which, judging by its fancy title, does really important things involving really important stuff like genetics.
Thing is, ole Alex publically claimed that humans used to live to be the ripe old age of 900 years old. Then, he claims, the “Biblical Flood” happened and since then “original, ancestral and personal sins caused genetic diseases that shortened lifespans”. And not only that, the Whack-Doc explained that “bad habits causes a mutation in your body…and it will be passed on to your offspring”. So apparently, that’s why we humans don’t often live to be 900.
I don’t know about living nine centuries but I’m all for getting rid of people’s bad habits. Starting with taping fish to people’s cars.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.