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You know what I'm about to talk about.
Maybe you first saw it in the Boy Scouts
Maybe it was the first time you were in shop class
Maybe it was Driver's Education
Maybe it was the first job you had around working/power machinery
What I'm talking about is the first time you got one of those safety pamphlets that show you the CORRECT way to handle knives/industrial tools/chemicals/firearms/etc by showing some poor hapless sap with a funny and/or alliterating name doing it the WRONG way every single time... you know the one:
"Remember kids! Knives are dangerous! So, Don't Do What Donny Donot Does!
And there, on every page, in every comic, poor ol' Donny would do something stupid and cut/injure/maim/kill himself.....and you had to sit there and watch his pitiful and painful mortal failings time and time again, just so you knew not to do it that way yourself. By the end you were rooting for him to at least get ONE thing right, but alas, he'd never ever learn a single thing, and he'd be lacerated, immolated, perforated and possibly incarcerated time and time again, soaking up the abuse like a cartoon cat trying to catch a cartoon mouse with a variety of lethal tools and traps that inevitably turn on him, yet not as funny because there's no evidence this guy deserves any of what's happening to him.
Those used to really bother me.
Like, is there anyone out there that haphazard? That incompetent? That accident prone that there's literally no point where they have an option over their actions that they don't choose the wrong one? Raw averages say he's gonna get at least ONE of those right. Or after the first 3 wrongs ones, someone's gonna tie him to a chair so he CAN'T endanger them anymore at the very least.
To me, that undercut the safety message, because it implied that safety was immaterial. Stupid rock-chewing people like Donny would find a way around it, and if you were at least smarter than Donny, (as anyone who didn't have spam-for-brains certainly was) then why bother reading?
I certainly spent more time pondering the sociological implications of people like Donny Donot loose among us instead of actually bothering to read the booklet and learn where not to put my fingers while bending metal bars in the machine or whatever....
Well, I take it all back, every single piece of it, I take back.
Donny Donots exists, and he was here last Monday morning.
Here's a rundown of everything he did wrong.
DO NOT park at your friend's place without a permit to park there, else you'll be towed
DO NOT bang on the side door to the bodyshop's paint booth outside when you are here to pick up the car, go to the FRONT DOOR where all the lights are on, not a darkened door off the side of the building, nothing will happen until you do.
DO NOT pound on the door, the glass door you can see us through, while we're in the process of unlocking it, this will not make it go faster
DO NOT yammer on for thirty minutes about how you were just visiting and your friend said you didn't need a permit, yadda yadda yadda, that won't get you anywhere.
DO NOT claim poverty and say you have no money, this will not affect the price of a tow
DO NOT say you can pay if we let you get "the money" out of your car, and then, once let into the impound lot, take a $20 out of the glovebox and say "That's all I got"
DO NOT get angry with us when we tell you that generous $20 offer is $110 short of what you'll need to pay us
DO NOT try to drive out of the impound without paying
DO NOT whine "you mean I gotta WALK back around?", it's pretty obvious isn't it?
DO NOT continue with the verbal abuse while your friend drives over to loan you a credit card so you can get out of impound.
DO NOT stomp the gas and crank the steering wheel as hard as you can while pulling out and sideswipe the car you are parked next to, denting you both up.
DO NOT frantically drive off when informed you've damaged another vehicle
DO NOT keep circling the block after fleeing the scene of an accident, driving past our lot 2 or 3 times and looking at us funny, (trying to intimidate us?) as we're currently on the phone with the police, and now know exactly where you are, and have all your information from when we actually un-impounded the car.
DO NOT take off when the police arrive to investigate a hit-and-run we've called in, YOUR hit and run.
DO NOT fail to stop when the police pull up behind you and turn their lights on
DO NOT fail to stop when a 2nd and 3rd police car join the chase, ultimately cornering you and denting your car up some more in a parking lot just two blocks from your home.
DO NOT have such copious amounts of your favorite recreational drug in the car with you that when the police search it pursuant to your arrest for hit and run AND felony evasion, they decide to add possession with intent to your pending charges.
DO NOT fail the sobriety check they give you pursuant to finding drugs in the car, as you looked plenty sober to us, but, were apparently slightly buzzed on the same stuff, or maybe just plain ol' liquor, either way, you've just got a DUI added to that ever growing rap sheet.
DO NOT ever ever EVER consider procreating, the world does not need MORE of you. I know, I know, you won't listen to THAT one either, but, at least I can go to bed with a clean conscious, knowing I tried my best.
I'm sure there's a way they could have done that MORE wrong, but, I'd rather not think to hard about what that would have entailed, I do not want to encourage someone to break THIS record for stupidity, which is going to stand for quite a while.
Maybe you first saw it in the Boy Scouts
Maybe it was the first time you were in shop class
Maybe it was Driver's Education
Maybe it was the first job you had around working/power machinery
What I'm talking about is the first time you got one of those safety pamphlets that show you the CORRECT way to handle knives/industrial tools/chemicals/firearms/etc by showing some poor hapless sap with a funny and/or alliterating name doing it the WRONG way every single time... you know the one:
"Remember kids! Knives are dangerous! So, Don't Do What Donny Donot Does!
And there, on every page, in every comic, poor ol' Donny would do something stupid and cut/injure/maim/kill himself.....and you had to sit there and watch his pitiful and painful mortal failings time and time again, just so you knew not to do it that way yourself. By the end you were rooting for him to at least get ONE thing right, but alas, he'd never ever learn a single thing, and he'd be lacerated, immolated, perforated and possibly incarcerated time and time again, soaking up the abuse like a cartoon cat trying to catch a cartoon mouse with a variety of lethal tools and traps that inevitably turn on him, yet not as funny because there's no evidence this guy deserves any of what's happening to him.
Those used to really bother me.
Like, is there anyone out there that haphazard? That incompetent? That accident prone that there's literally no point where they have an option over their actions that they don't choose the wrong one? Raw averages say he's gonna get at least ONE of those right. Or after the first 3 wrongs ones, someone's gonna tie him to a chair so he CAN'T endanger them anymore at the very least.
To me, that undercut the safety message, because it implied that safety was immaterial. Stupid rock-chewing people like Donny would find a way around it, and if you were at least smarter than Donny, (as anyone who didn't have spam-for-brains certainly was) then why bother reading?
I certainly spent more time pondering the sociological implications of people like Donny Donot loose among us instead of actually bothering to read the booklet and learn where not to put my fingers while bending metal bars in the machine or whatever....
Well, I take it all back, every single piece of it, I take back.
Donny Donots exists, and he was here last Monday morning.
Here's a rundown of everything he did wrong.
DO NOT park at your friend's place without a permit to park there, else you'll be towed
DO NOT bang on the side door to the bodyshop's paint booth outside when you are here to pick up the car, go to the FRONT DOOR where all the lights are on, not a darkened door off the side of the building, nothing will happen until you do.
DO NOT pound on the door, the glass door you can see us through, while we're in the process of unlocking it, this will not make it go faster
DO NOT yammer on for thirty minutes about how you were just visiting and your friend said you didn't need a permit, yadda yadda yadda, that won't get you anywhere.
DO NOT claim poverty and say you have no money, this will not affect the price of a tow
DO NOT say you can pay if we let you get "the money" out of your car, and then, once let into the impound lot, take a $20 out of the glovebox and say "That's all I got"
DO NOT get angry with us when we tell you that generous $20 offer is $110 short of what you'll need to pay us
DO NOT try to drive out of the impound without paying
DO NOT whine "you mean I gotta WALK back around?", it's pretty obvious isn't it?
DO NOT continue with the verbal abuse while your friend drives over to loan you a credit card so you can get out of impound.
DO NOT stomp the gas and crank the steering wheel as hard as you can while pulling out and sideswipe the car you are parked next to, denting you both up.
DO NOT frantically drive off when informed you've damaged another vehicle
DO NOT keep circling the block after fleeing the scene of an accident, driving past our lot 2 or 3 times and looking at us funny, (trying to intimidate us?) as we're currently on the phone with the police, and now know exactly where you are, and have all your information from when we actually un-impounded the car.
DO NOT take off when the police arrive to investigate a hit-and-run we've called in, YOUR hit and run.
DO NOT fail to stop when the police pull up behind you and turn their lights on
DO NOT fail to stop when a 2nd and 3rd police car join the chase, ultimately cornering you and denting your car up some more in a parking lot just two blocks from your home.
DO NOT have such copious amounts of your favorite recreational drug in the car with you that when the police search it pursuant to your arrest for hit and run AND felony evasion, they decide to add possession with intent to your pending charges.
DO NOT fail the sobriety check they give you pursuant to finding drugs in the car, as you looked plenty sober to us, but, were apparently slightly buzzed on the same stuff, or maybe just plain ol' liquor, either way, you've just got a DUI added to that ever growing rap sheet.
DO NOT ever ever EVER consider procreating, the world does not need MORE of you. I know, I know, you won't listen to THAT one either, but, at least I can go to bed with a clean conscious, knowing I tried my best.
I'm sure there's a way they could have done that MORE wrong, but, I'd rather not think to hard about what that would have entailed, I do not want to encourage someone to break THIS record for stupidity, which is going to stand for quite a while.
Just how dumb can one person be?
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