Who Are These People?

There’s a story in the paper about a guy who got really drunk in a bar. He was kicked out of the place and refused to go. The owners called the police and when they arrived they surrounded the guy to try to get him to leave. The guy becomes frightened and grabs his cell phone to call 911 to complain that he is surrounded by the police. True story.

There’s another one about the guy in Germany who was going to try to kill himself. It seems he planned to do it by turning on the gas stove and sucking in enough gas to end it all. Well, midway through he changed his mind and decided he wanted to live. He turned the stove off and was so stressed out over the whole thing he lit a cigarette. The lighting of the cig caused an explosion that, you guessed it, killed him. True story.

What is it about people that make them do the strangest things and what is it that makes me so interested in it? I have always found that when reading the newspaper I look for the strange but true stories. I used to buy magazines that would only have articles like that. I'm not talking about spooky stuff, I've never gotten into that, it's always the stuff that shows how incredibly stupid people can be.

There was a book called "The Worlds Dumbest Criminals" out a number of years ago and it just fascinated me to read about how incredibly inept these people were. One of the saddest things about it is the idea that some of these idiots had guns. Not to get too serious in this but how is that even remotely possible?

I know that if in a mall or anywhere else a large amount of people are, I’m constantly looking for someone to walk into someone else or trip on their own feet. That may sound terrible but it makes me laugh. But those things are nothing like, for instance, the guy who went to rob a bank. He went to the table where the deposit slips were and wrote his hold up note on one. He then went to stand in line and wait his turn. While waiting he started thinking that someone may have seen him write the note so he probably should leave.

He then saw that there was a bank across the street and decided to rob that one. When he got up to the window the teller, wisely or not, told the man that he was using the wrong deposit slip. That the one he had was from across the street and he would have to go there. Well this guy bought it and walked back across the street to the original bank and got in line. Meanwhile, the teller who sent him there, called the police and the man was arrested.

Who are these people and how do they walk among us? I mean, they have parents, friends, spouses etc… I’ve done an incredible amount of stupid things in my life but nothing compares to these folks. These are people we see and meet everyday. I don’t think you’d even know it if you ran into one of these folks.

I wonder if after they do the little flip out thing, after they finally get home after it all, do they sit back and realize what morons they were for that moment in time. That is of course if they haven’t killed themselves.