So here it goes:

Troy had been home from work for a while and was out on the back porch reading. Paul came in the house loud as he always did, from his job as a stucco laborer. Apparently, Neil (the youngest of the brothers) had found a puppy or something, and brought it home, and it had made a nice little mess on the back porch carpet.

So Paul comes home, bitching about how hard it is to do stucco and how much thought needs to go into that job (I'm sure it's thoughtless to most people). He notices the pile of dog shit on the carpet. "Damn!" he starts off. "Neil needs to learn to take care of these animals if he's going to bring them home. I guess I'm going to have to clean it, since no one else will."

So Paul goes into the house for a few minutes. Troy continues to read his book until Paul comes back. This time, he's equipped with the vacuum cleaner. Troy puts his book down on the table; this already proves to be entertaining to watch.

Of course, there Paul goes, running the vacuum cleaner over the pile of dog shit, leaving streaks behind on the carpet. He doesn't seem to notice; he just keeps chugging along with the vacuum. Once he finishes, then he acknowledges the mistake he made. "Shit! I need to fix that now, dammit!"

So Paul goes into the house, and returns with the bleach and a rag, scrubbing out the dog shit with the bleach. The carpet on the porch is grey-white, splotched with this light teal color. So there's now teal with white streaks in the carpet rather than brown. Just about as noticeable. So what does Paul do? Goes to get a marker, of course! Here he comes with the marker, and touches up the carpet to make it once again look more presentable. Latest problem averted.

Now Paul has a new problem to solve once he looks back at the vacuum cleaner. What does he do with the dog shit that stuck to the bristles on the vacuum? Looking around, he spots the pool. Of course! All he has to do is run the vacuum cleaner and dip the brushes in the water, and let the spinning action wash the brushes right off.

Troy's sitting there, and warns Paul that this is not smart. Right in line with his personality, Paul believes he is smarter than everyone else and that he knows what he's doing, so he ignores Troy. He lowers the vacuum cleaner into the pool.

We get the expected result, just not as violent as we would have thought. Paul gets a healthy jolt of electricity and drops the vacuum into the swimming pool. The damned thing is still running, rolling across the floor of the pool like a Creepy Crawler.

Paul gets another epiphany. Reach on into the pool and grab that sucker! Well, he does, and we get a repeated result. The vacuum is again dropped, rolling happily at the bottom of the pool. Paul tries again. Same result.

Then the obvious (to him) hits him. He explains his newest great realization to Troy. "Duh! I'm an idiot! It's because my right hand is calloused and cracked. The electricity is able to go straight into my bloodstream! I'll use my left hand." So he does. Again, he drops the vacuum.

By this time, Paul is tired of getting shocked, so he figures he's going to tough out the electricity and get the vacuum out of the pool. He grabs the vacuum and keeps playing through the pain. He gets it out of the pool and chucks it into the grass. THEN he unplugs it, wraps the cord up and puts the vacuum away like nothing happened.

The next morning, our mom tells Neil to clean his room. He gets the vacuum cleaner and starts to work. There was a loud burst from his bedroom and when the door was opened, a cloud of grey smoke is seen coming out of the room. Paul was still asleep until this. He flings open the door and says "damn, Neil, do you have to break everything in this house?!" Neil has this habit of leaving everything on the floor and running the vacuum over it. This is well known information to the family. So needless to say, he got in trouble. Paul once again cheated death somehow, destroyed stuff around the house, and didn't get in trouble.

Submitted on 06/21/2008

Submitted by: Nick
Reference: Personal account

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
I guess your brother must have a solid load of stucco between his ears! Otherwise, he wouldn't have lived! Probably the most hilarious PA I've seen in the last couple of weeks! Thanks, Nick!

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Great story, Nick. Make sure you keep out of the way of Paul or you could end up getting hurt yourself!

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