A MAN was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his
engine on the motorcycle and somehow, the motorcycle slipped into gear. The
man, still holding the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door and
along with the motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house. The wife,
hearing the crash, ran into the dining room, and found her husband laying on
the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle laying next to him and the patio
door shattered. The wife ran to the phone and summoned an ambulance. Because
they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of
long steps to the street to direct the paramedics to her husband.
After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband
to the hospital, the wife uprighted the motorcycle and pushed it outside.
Seeing that gas had spilled on the floor, the wife obtained some papers towels,
blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet. The husband was
treated at the hospital and was released to come home.
After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio
door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He became despondent, went into the
bathroom, sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing the
cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still
seated. The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her
husband screaming. She ran into the bathroom and found her husband laying on
the floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the
buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin. The wife again ran to the phone
and called for an ambulance.
The same ambulance crew was dispatched and the wife met
them at the street. The paramedics loaded the husband on the stretcher and
began carrying him to the street. While they were going down the stairs to the
street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the wife how the
husband had burned himself. She told them and the paramedics started laughing
so hard, one of them tipped the stretcher and dumped the husband out. He fell
down the remaining steps and broke his arm. Now THAT is a bad day...
Analysis:
Exploding toilet stories have a long history, but the
motorcycle variant repeated is of more recent origin and has been traced to a
specific publication, Motorcyclist magazine, which published it originally in
1984 (and again in 1991).
Another variation of the story was published in the
Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Aug. 25, 1988 in a report of an event that
supposedly had occurred in Tel Aviv a week earlier.
According to the Post, the chain of accidents began when
an unidentified Israeli housewife stomped on a cockroach, threw it into the
toilet and sprayed in a full can of insecticide, neglecting to flush afterward.
The next person to use the toilet was her husband. As he
sat down he dropped a smoldering cigarette butt into the bowl, causing an
explosion that seriously burned what the Post referred to as "his
sensitive parts." Paramedics came, wrapped him up on a stretcher and
started to take him away.
Any fan of urban legends can complete the story: When the
paramedics heard how the man had become injured, they laughed so hard that they
lost their grip on the stretcher and dropped him down the steps of his house,
causing two broken ribs and a cracked pelvis.
Actually, this legend is a good addition to a collection
of comforting stories in a series "If you think you are having a bad
day".
Sources and
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