Besides Clay Aiken and the DMV, nothing irks me more than those people who sneak around the grocery store with bushels of shrimp in their pants. You know the type — the smelly old man in the seafood aisle, desperate for his crustacean fix, slyly using one hand to casually stroke his greasy neck hairs and the other to slip large quantities of shrimp packets down the front of his trousers.
Such a scoundrel was depicted in a recent top news article on msnbc.com titled “Man nabbed with frozen shrimp bags in pants.” According to the article, the Bradenton, Fla. resident attempted to “steal several bags of frozen shrimp from a supermarket by hiding them down his pants.” An off-duty detective saw the man and, perhaps impressed by what appeared to be an exceptionally robust package of masculinity, asked the man to empty the strong-smelling contents from his pants. When the man attempted to flee the premises, the detective tackled and restrained him until patrol deputies arrived to free the chilled crustaceans.
In a nation gripped by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, a never-ending war in Iraq and one of the most contentious presidential elections in history, it seems many are falling back on the timeless American traditions of petty thievery and sheer idiocy to cope with the troubles that surround them. Ridiculous stories are inundating the news like never before.
Even our country’s most noble of civic leaders are getting caught up in the craziness. Take, for example, Nebraska Sen. Ernie Chambers, whose dignified attempt at fixing the world’s woes was discussed in a recent news article titled, “Suit against God tossed over lack of address.” Sen. Chambers, known locally as “the Maverick of Omaha,” was completely overwhelmed by all his country’s problems, which led him to say that, logically, it must be God’s fault. And as an American, he realized that the only way to solve problems in this country is to sue people. Thus, he wisely reasoned that all he had to do was sue God. Unfortunately, the judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying that the court could not get in touch with the Almighty because of his unlisted home address and phone number. The senator, appalled by the court’s incompetence, promptly went about suing the Yellow Pages.
But even the God lawsuit takes a backseat to our country’s most popular topic to date, the presidential election, which has given way to, as we all knew it soon would, controversy over dog defecation. As the news article “Man shows his political leanings with dog feces” shows, Americans are having a hard time finding sanitary ways to demonstrate their political allegiances. According to the article, a man was ticketed in St. Cloud, Minn. last week for “unlawful dumping after admitting to putting dog feces in his neighbor’s truck for political reasons.” Nineteen-year-old Donald Esmay told police he started finding the feces in his truck right after he put a McCain sign next to it.
After several days of poop-finding, Esmay and his family began to watch the truck in hopes of catching the culprit, which they finally did last Wednesday. They confronted the 45-year-old man, who claimed that his dog, an ardent liberal, made him do it. The unlawful dumping ticket, as you all probably know, entails a $183 fine and a stern scoldin’.
The last of this week’s news articles is titled “Man accused of tucking 6 lobsters into his pants.” In yet another incident of seafood smuggling via pants, a 33-year-old San Diego man stole a half dozen lobsters from the La Jolla State Marine Conservation Area and proceeded to store them in a zone where sharp claws are strictly prohibited, namely in the neighborhood of his genitalia. Daryl Simmons, the Department of Fish and Game warden, quickly arrested the man when the warden noticed “odd bulges” in his jeans, commenting later that “we were dealing with a good 16-inch bulge, something I’m not sure even Chuck Norris can pull off, so I knew something wasn’t right.” After eliminating the man’s chances of reproduction, the lobsters were removed and returned to the ocean.
Reading these absurd articles has got me to thinking — in the highly volatile economic conditions in which we live, where can I get free tuna salad? If you find out, let me know, ‘cause these pants are really starting to stink.
Nick’s column runs weekly Fridays. He can be reached at n.eilerson@cavalierdaily.com.
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