Doofus Of The Day #425

Actually, this post should perhaps be titled 'Doofus Of The Year 2010'! A New Zealand web site has nominated Florida as 'top of the odd news' for the past year.

This year, Floridians learned that burials at sea don't work if the body doesn't sink, giant snail mucus can make you sick and that an underwire bra can stop a lawyer from visiting her client in prison.

Florida lived up to its reputation for being an odd state in 2010, with residents committing stupid crimes, making poor decisions and exhibiting general weirdness.

. . .

Several people in Miami complained got sick after consuming mucous from a giant snail in a religious ceremony.

2010 wasn't the year to mess with the elderly. An 84-year-old man was arrested in Bay County for allegedly hitting a deputy with his cane.

Would-be robbers knocked an 83-year-old man to the ground in Clearwater only to turn and run when the victim pulled a gun on them. A 69-year-old woman turned back a robber after picking up the gun he dropped in her car while smashing the windshield with it. He also dropped his cellphone and was caught.

. . .

Finally, Florida has the kind of corrections officials that will make you rethink what you're wearing. A Miami attorney said she was kept from visiting her client at a federal detention centre because the underwire of her bra set off the metal detector. After she took it off, she said guards wouldn't let her in because she was braless.

There's more at the link. Amusing reading.

Actually, I can understand that last paragraph. Having worked as a chaplain in the Federal prison system, I know that their regulations do, indeed, require visitors to pass through the metal detector without setting it off. Another regulation does, indeed, require female visitors to dress in a manner that won't . . . ah . . . titillate male inmates (you should pardon the expression!). In this case, I guess it turned into a Catch-22 situation . . . although, given the subject(s) under discussion, that should perhaps be a Catch-36, or Catch-38, or even a Catch-44!

I guess when a US state is nominated as the weirdest of the weird, by a Web site on the other side of the world, that's worth our Doofus award.



Peter