Charles Darwin's Darwin Awards 
HOME
Darwin Awards
Honorable Mentions
Urban Legends
Personal Accounts
Slush Pile
Recent Slush
"Bricklayer" legend's an old song
Crocodile eats man who sought its b
Death by compactor
man eaten by crocodile
Person decapitated at Six Flags
Stop the train! My car!
kite surfing in a Tropical Storm
Man's Worst Friend
Priest + ballons found
The Hurricane Between The Ears
Bench Pressing
How to open a box of explosives
Morbid Curiosity: A Snapshot
Electric deja vu
Trucker killed by falling pipe
Woman sits in I-10 and dies
Saw it coming
"Sp-Arkansas"
Don't eat nachos on a motorcyle
Smoking in bedrooms is bad enough
Incoming
Wite-Out Drunk
Dancing in the roof with energy
A place not to tie shoestrings
Steamroller joyride gone bad
A new kind of hurt
Man cuts himself in Two
Stupid Window Cleaner
DIY Chainsaw
Sink or Swim
Sit, don't stand
Wasn't using it anyway...
Stickboy
"Dukes of Hazard"
Copper thief melted to pole
Good and Gone
Two fires, one year
Man Emerges From Storm Drain
Digging a tunnel under the dunes
When Stealing, Remember: Safety Fir
Balcony Leap
Unplugged?
Head Brick Break
Red Head
Gas Siphoning goes terribly wrong
Man Killed Trying To Steal Tires Of
Off-duty officer wounded in prank
Back seat lovers survive cliff plun
Fence post takes out student
Wrong outfit for canoeing
look down!
Man torn apart by zoo bears
Self-bris near-miss
Don't Drill In The Rain
Climbing Failure
No chicken
Mousetrap Mangled Manhood
Trying to Jump The Gap
Phoning is the End of the Line
personal account
Electrizing measurement effort
TS Fay Slams Kite Surfer
Faulkner County man killed in accid
Homemade bazooka
Attempted Suicide by Cat
Man Refuses smoke detectors - dies
Women embarrassed after rescue
Dead man found in hot trunk
Say "Cheese!"
Man found dead head firstin sewer
Aligator removes wrong part
elevator
It apparently takes more than one..
electric esauphogus
Hospital Drunks
Man Suffers Burns In Gas Tank Explo
2 Men On Double Decker Bus
Ax that spider!
Electric shock "cooks" raider
The Microtome
Slow Learner
Brillant!!
Clothes Dryer Grill
How high is it?
Never assume . . .
Inner tube blues
11,000 volt fatal shock for Leeds c
Safety first
Surfing a Tsunami
Man found dead in Calgary manhole
Orca Avenger
IT'S NOT BULLETPROOF!!!
How hard is your head?
RVs in Prunetown
Exeter Bomber
Burned On A Utility Pole
Electrocuted by train power line
Don't hold your breath...
Heart Shocking
It is really good beer
Copper theif dies in vault
Burglar Pancake
Looking for "pleasure" in a hole
Surgeons Remove 16 Steel Washers Fr
Drain inspector
Flamming lips
Race to the Pole
Smoking bomb
Sheepdog in Tractor kills Farmer
How Not to Drain a Plant
R.I.P. BMW
Youth Killed as Club's Shaft Pierce
Cooked Crook
Timmy fell down the well..really
Hangar 18
Check for pets before breaking in
Take a Picture, It'll last longer!
Man trying to steal copper wires ge
No helmet, no brain
A Night On the Road
Genital warts
Dallas copper thief is done
Rock Climbing Incident
Near Miss
Mega hurts
Ooops you've been ULed
puts the "hot" in the icy hot
Exterminator? Not so Much.
Dallas copper thief is done
Final descent, update
Older Slush 
 
~ Randomizer ~
Newsletter
Gift Shop
Rules  Search
Contact Darwin
Submit a Story
Philosophy Forum
Home

  

Darwin Awards
2008 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Unplugged?

2008 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

I'm one of six. This story involves Paul, the brother that was born after me, and Troy, the oldest, who was witness to this particular episode. This happened about five years ago or so. Troy had just recently moved back to the States from Korea, and was crashing at the folks' house for a few months to get back on his feet.

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

Great? 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Awful?
Love it! Hate it!
>> Moderator Scores <<

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!


The Darwin Awards Gift Shop

$15 Grenade Juggler T-Shirt / White
Heavy 100% cotton Hanes Beefy-T with a man juggling hand grenades on the front... and his empty smoking tennis shoes on the back! Based on a true story.
Buy the Grenade Juggler T-Shirt

 

Slush Pile
Slush Pile Rejects


Advanced Search

HomeRulesFAQsAwardsSlushSite Map
DarwinAward | HonorableMention | PersonalAccount | UrbanLegend