Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2

by John Michael Scalzi

  Source: Associated Press

  Airport Insecurity

  Shelia” the stripper was inebriated, scantily clad, and sleepy. So what did Sheila do? Since she wasn’t at home, she decided to find a nice quiet spot to take a nap.

  Now before you start pointing your fingers, let us inform you that her being drunk, sleepy, and a stripper is not the dumb part of the story. The dumb part of the story is that the cozy spot our heroine decided to nap in was an airplane. To get to it, she had to climb over a barbed wire fence (try that in a g-string!) at the Aberdeen Airport in Scotland without being detected by airport security. She had been in the airplane for eight hours before someone finally figured out she was there.

  “I expect this incident causes great embarrassment to the airport authorities,” security expert David Capitanchik noted to the BBC. “It’s not the sort of thing that should happen. That’s what barbed wire fences are there for and CCTV (closed circuit television) and guys who should be patrolling the perimeter.”

  Even Shelia was outraged. “If I can break into a major airport,” she said, “what chance have they got catching terrorists?” Indeed. Especially since the terrorists are unlikely to be wearing such skimpy outfits.

  Shelia was let off with a warning and banned from the airport—unless she’s actually planning to fly somewhere. Although we suspect she’s not going to be too keen on going anywhere from that particular airport. After all, she knows how lax security there can be.

  Source: BBC, Reuters

  In Man Vs. Train, Bet on the Train

  Charley” had an excellent reason to be irritated at trains. In 1989 the Appleton, Wisconsin, man had a run-in with a train that crushed his car and put him in a wheelchair. But that’s not the reason that Charley hated locomotives. Fact is, he thought their horns are just too loud. And to protest their intrusion into his earspace, he would go right up to the tracks, where he could be seen by the engineers and conductors, and shoot them the bird. The train crews were so familiar with his presence they considered him a “regular,” just another attraction on the trip. If it’s a man in a wheelchair sticking up his middle finger, it must be Appleton.

  One night Charley was preparing to flip off the Canadian National engine that was chugging down the track. But Charley’s enthusiasm to get the best position apparently caused him to forget a critical thing: don’t get too close to the train. Charley’s wheelchair was clipped by the engine’s gas tank. The collision sent Charley flying backward. Luckily, his only injuries were a mere scrape on his arm and a bruised ego.

  Charley’s reward for getting clipped? A citation from the Appleton police for being a pedestrian in violation of traffic signals. He was also advised to find a less dangerous way to register his complaints. That’s probably good advice. Although if he takes it, how will the train crews know they’re in Appleton?

  Source: The Post-Crescent (Appleton, WI), USA Today

  Step Outside, Then Free Fall

  Larry” was like many vacationers to sunny Spain. He enjoyed his imbibibles. Although perhaps more than other vacationers—he enjoyed them so much that he would sometimes drink enough to make him surly and combative. As he was after he had downed most of a bottle of vodka and then decided to pick a fight with another vacationer. The details of why the particular fight was started are hazy, but we do know that Larry at one point went up to a man and asked him to “step outside” for a fight.

  We know for fact that the two of them did not step outside. We know this because “outside” in this case was 25,000 feet up: Larry and his erstwhile opponent were passengers in an Easy-Jet flight from Alicante to Bristol. Larry was apparently so drunk that he didn’t realize that “Let’s you and me step outside” actually meant a freefall to certain death for both of them.

  Larry discovered what being drunk and belligerent and vertically unaware can cost you: he was sentenced to three months in prison by the Bristol Crown Court, which said to him, “This sort of behaviour will not be tolerated on an aircraft.” Exactly right. He should have waited until he was inside the terminal.

  A hint for Larry, don’t ask any of your new prison friends to “step outside.” You won’t have a 25,000-foot buffer zone to protect you then.

  Source: The Scotsman (Scotland), The Sun (UK)

  Empty Vessels

  We think it’s a fine thing if the people who work for the Transportation Security Administration are a curious lot. They are charged with keeping America’s airplanes safe and secure—and for a job like that it helps to wonder if a belt buckle is hiding a little knife or if someone’s shoes just might have soles made out of explosives. So, yes, curious TSA agents get a big thumbs up from us, just as long as their curiosity doesn’t involve us having to get a full body-cavity search.

  On the other hand, we think that the TSA screeners should focus their curiosity on things that are materially relevant to their jobs. So as an example, “Gee, I wonder if I should put that guy’s carrying case through the X-ray machine to see what’s in it?” is an excellent use of TSA screener curiosity. “Gee, I wonder if I should put my own head through the X-ray machine to see what’s in it?” is not.

  But it was the latter sort of curiosity that gripped several TSA security screeners at a number of different airports. Who can blame them? Aren’t we all curious about our own bodies, especially the parts we can’t usually see without exposing ourselves to serious bodily harm? And here were the TSA screeners, in full control of X-ray machines. It was only natural that sooner or later some of them would pass themselves through the machines, as these several screeners did—they just slid themselves on the conveyor belts and rolled on in. The X-ray machines, 30 inches high and 18 inches wide, were big enough that they slipped through without problem. They didn’t have to get a doctor’s permission or anything.

  Ah, but they did need to get the TSA’s permission, a small detail that eluded these screeners. Here’s what happens when you don’t: the TSA confirmed in February 2004 that several of its screeners had been placed on administrative leave for passing themselves through the machines. Mike Fierberg, a TSA spokesman, denied to a Denver television station that passengers were ever put in danger because of the hi-jinx of the screeners, but he did allow that the TSA screeners’ going through the X-ray machines themselves was pretty stupid—not to mention curious—behavior, and not in the good sense.

  Source: KUSA-TV

  Report The News, Don’t Make It

  Here’s a lesson we think is valuable for every pilot: top off the tank before you take to the sky. There may be things in life that are more unpleasant than running out of gas when the only thing between you and the ground are a few lucky updrafts, but they are few and we don’t actually want to spend any time imagining what they are.

  Topping off the fuel tank also might make you look a bit less foolish than the pilot and reporter in the KCBS Sky Three, a Cessna 172 used by the San Francisco radio station and other stations to monitor traffic in the Bay Area. We don’t know that the pilot didn’t fuel up before taking to the air that May 2004 morning, but we do know that at about 8:30 a.m., the plane’s engine started sputtering, indicating that the tank was dry.

  Well, you know what happens when a plane runs out of gas: gravity. The pilot looked for places to land and spotted a few school grounds, but in each case there were children on the grounds, and the pilot—wisely—decided that teaching the children the joys of playing with a falling Cessna should not be the lesson of the day.

  That left the highway—itself not a bundle of fun at 8:30 on a weekday morning in the Bay Area. But the pilot managed, setting down on the Westbound 580 at the 238 split (i.e. traffic central). Then the plane, which was supposed to report on traffic slowdowns, created one as commuters gawked at the sight of the plane on the highway shoulder. At least there was a reporter on the scene to cover the news.

  Source: Chronicle (San Francisco, CA), Tri-Valley Herald

  We’re Sorry, This Is a No-Slapping Flight

&
nbsp; Try to follow this reasoning here, because we know it’s got us a little confused. “Bobbi” was on a plane that was taxiing down the runway in Miami on its way to Philadelphia, and she was standing up, merrily chatting away on her cell phone to a friend. As anyone who has traveled by plane over the last few years knows, when a plane is just about ready for lift-off, they like you in your seat, and they like you not to be on your cell phone, which airline maintain can mess with cockpit communications.

  So Bobbi was told—several times—by the flight attendants. Bobbi’s response: “It is rude to hang up on people. I don’t have to turn my phone off.” Well, in fact, you do; it’s a federal case if you interfere with a flight crew. Moreover, it’s entirely likely the plane won’t take off if someone is actively ignoring the flight crew. Strange as it may seem, it makes flight crews jumpy. So we ask you: what is more rude? Hanging up on a friend on your cell phone? Or inconveniencing an entire plane because you simply won’t shut up? See, that’s what we think, too. But not Bobbi.

  The flight crew having been defeated by Bobbi’s obnoxiousness decided it was time for the air marshals on the flight to tell her what to do. One of them told her to sit down, and put his hand on her shoulder to get her attention. Whereupon Bobbi slapped the air marshal smack in the face. We ask again: which is ruder? Hanging up your cell phone or physically assaulting a federal officer? Once again, we are in agreement. But, again, not Bobbi.

  Sadly for Bobbi, this is when a bit of rudeness was visited upon her: she was taken down, handcuffed, hauled off the plane, and then charged with assaulting a federal officer and interfering with a flight crew. We wonder if she was allowed the customary phone call, seeing that she’d already been on the phone. But we guess that refusing her that call would be, you know, rude.

  Source: Associated Press

  Don’t Rush Me

  Something to know about a Coast Guard inspection of your merchant vessel, should you have a merchant vessel: it takes a while. Yes, as highly trained and efficient as the U.S. Coast Guard is in performing its duties, individually and severally, there is still an excellent chance that the performance of said duties will, in fact, consume quite a bit of time. Please find some way to amuse yourself until they are done. We hear solitaire is fun.

  Our Turkish captain “Khamel” was apparently not a patient man. And so when the Coast Guard personnel from the Port of Philadelphia did not perform their duties in a manner that Khamel deemed timely, he struck upon an innovative strategy to speed them along when he blurted out that there was a bomb on board.

  This did not speed things up. On the contrary, the Coast Guard ordered the ship back to sea, where rather than the quick inspection the Coast Guard had been performing, the ship got the full inspection treatment complete with bomb-sniffing dogs brought in for the occasion. Khamel, realizing he’d stupidly extended the time he had to wait before his ship could dock, tried to take back the comment, but as one Coast Guard official said, “He’d already rung the bell.”

  Khamel himself found another, exciting way to wait. He was detained by the FBI for making a false statement to a federal official, which is a felony. More proof that patience (and honesty!) is a virtue.

  Source: NBC News, Delaware Online

  The Really Stupid Quiz

  Travel Travails

  One of the stories is a round trip ticket to Truthville. Two of them lead to an infinite layover in Falseburg. Which is which? Pick your choice and then board to discover your destination.

  1.The skies are filled with stories of drunken passengers abusing flight attendants. But drunken flight attendants abusing passengers? That’s a new one on us. And yet it happened—and perhaps stereotypically, it happened in Russia. It was there, on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Nizhnevartovsk, that the flight crew caused a scene, first by disappearing for most of the trip, then reappearing near the end of the trip to drunkenly pass out food to the passengers. One of the passengers complained about the service, and three of the male flight attendants took it upon themselves to give the guy several knuckle sandwiches and blacken his eye. The man, naturally enough, has filed a lawsuit against the airline, and the flight attendants are looking at three months each in a Russian prison. Have a nice trip, guys!

  2.The Quantas flight from Los Angeles to Auckland was going along swimmingly, until somewhere over the Pacific, the plane’s in-flight entertainment system gave out with six hours left to go until touchdown. This could have meant nothing but hours of staring at the South Pacific, but the Qantas flight crew had another idea. “Robert [McGee, one of the flight crew] remembered that a passenger brought a guitar as her carry-on,” said head attendant Sarah Nelson. McGee, it turns out, had been a guitarist for a wedding band in Australia. The result: hours of passenger-request singalong. “I’d been looking forward to watching Bruce Almighty,” said 19-year-old Jane Stross, whose guitar had been borrowed. “But this was pretty cool, too.”

  3.As part of their in-flight entertainment options, many airlines allow their passengers to listen in to flight deck communication between the airline pilots and the air traffic controllers. The prospect of messing with some of those listeners proved to be irresistible to two Swiss International Air Lines pilots, who on a flight between Geneva and London decided to re-enact a famous episode of The Twilight Zone in which an equipment-destroying gremlin is spotted on the wing of the plane. It was a fine joke until that woman in the first class cabin who had been listening in freaked out and started screaming uncontrollably, forcing an emergency landing. Turns out the woman, who hated flying, had self-medicated prior to departure and was not in any mental position to distinguish reality from puckish pilot jokes. The after the plane’s eventual arrival in London, the pilots were put on paid leave pending an airline and pilot’s union investigation.

  Turn to page 329 for the answers.

  The Annals of Ill-Advised Television

  Today’s Episode: Supertrain

  Starring in this Episode: Robert Alda and Ilene Graff

  Debut Episode: February 7, 1979, on NBC

  The Pitch: It’s The Love Boat! On rails! Apparently convinced that a nation that considers Amtrak as the transportation of absolute last resort would buy into the idea of a super-luxury train, NBC greenlit this one, in which the train, in gross violation of physical laws, features an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a mall, and a disco, and travels at 200 miles an hour.

  It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Because: Well, The Love Boat was a big hit at the time. Also, one of the creators of the series was noted novelist Donald E. Westlake, who by this time had several successful novels (and movie adaptations thereof) to his name.

  In Reality: The Love Boat had apparently slaked the nation’s thirst for traveling B-level celebrities (like Lyle Waggoner, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Billy Barty) and amusing romantic adventures. There were also substantial production problems as well. Early on (in a bit of foreshadowing, perhaps?) the very expensive model of the Supertrain crashed while the show producers were showing it off to the NBC brass, which required an equally expensive alternate version to be constructed. The first five episodes rated so poorly that the show’s executive producer was replaced; the new executive producer added cast members and—on episode nine—a laugh track, none of which seemed to do any good.

  How Long Did It Last? Nine episodes, with the last airing on May 5, 1979—although NBC (likely out of programming desperation and to make back its money) played the show again during summer re-runs.

  Were Those Responsible Punished? NBC programming head Fred Silverman would eventually lose his job for this and other bad series (see Pink Lady . . . and Jeff on page 94). Donald E. Westlake survived apparently unscathed and would later be nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation of The Grifters.

  ANSWERS

  Answers to “The Really Stupid Quizzes”

  Big Dummy on Campus: 3

  Blame it on the Fame: 2

  Chug-a-Lug!: 3

  Dumbing in the Family:
2

  Edu-ma-cation: 2

  A Hunk, A Hunk of Burning Dumb: 1

  Outsmarted by Animals: 3

  Sex and Other Naked Activities: 1

  The Thrill of Victory, the Agony of Stupidity: 1

  Travel Travails: 1

  The Last Page

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