HAVING A BAD DAY AND RELATED SITUATIONS



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         On the night of July 5, 1991, while sleeping soundly with his
         wife, a police officer dreamed that someone was breaking into
         their  house.   Half  waking  up, he grabbed his gun from his
         nightstand and promptly shot himself in the  leg.   His  wife
         slept  through it.  He was reported in satisfactory condition
         at the local hospital.
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         As a promotional stunt at a baseball  game  in  1939  catcher
         Joe  Sprinz tried to catch a baseball dropped from 1,200 feet
         in the air. He said he could see the ball all the  way  down,
         but  somehow  instead  of catching it in his mitt, it hit him
         in the face, cracking his jaw in 12 places.
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         Not  all of Henry Ford's mechanical engineering worked out as
         successfully as the Model T Ford.
             When Henry Ford was about ten years old, he noticed steam
         rising out of his mother's teapot on the  stove.  He  figured
         that if the steam were trapped in the teapot, the whole thing
         would  have to rise into the air. To test his theory, he took
         a clay teapot and corked the spout from inside and tied  down
         the  lid. He then put the teapot in the fireplace and settled
         down to watch  closely.   Soon  something  happened,  but  it
         wasn't  what Henry expected.  The teapot exploded, breaking a
         window and a mirror in the living room and scalding Henry and
         cutting his cheek with bits of shrapnel.
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         In  1975,  orchestra  conductor  Jose  Serebrier accidentally
         stabbed  himself  through  the  hand  with  his  baton  while
         performing.  The audience and musicians were impressed by the
         fact  that  he  continued  leading  the  orchestra in perfect
         timing as if nothing had happened.
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         One day in August, 1892, in  Germany,  it  started  to  rain.
         This   rainstorm  was  unusual  because  somehow  there  were
         thousands of snails caught up in the clouds and they all came
         crashing down with their shells breaking to bits as they  hit
         the ground.
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         When  he  heard  that  Sarah Bernhardt may need to have a leg
         amputated, PT Barnum sent a telegraph offering $1000 for  her
         leg.
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         A  husband  and wife from Switzerland stopped in a restaurant
         in Hong Kong and asked that their  poodle  be  taken  to  the
         kitchen  and  fed  something.  Because of a misunderstanding,
         the waiter did what he thought they wanted, and had the cooks
         fry the dog for the couple.
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         In Denmark, where the standard of living  is  excellent,  the
         suicide  rate  is the highest in the world, with 286 of every
         100,000 people killing  themselves.   In  Jordan,  where  the
         standard  of  living is much more difficult, the rate is less
         than  one  in  100,000.  Throughout the world, more than 1000
         people kill themselves every day.
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         Due  to  a  temperature  inversion  and  air  pollution,  the
         "London Fog" turned into a  smog  that  killed  2,850  people
         during December 5-13, 1951.
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         Every year 2,000 people in America  suffer  brain  damage  or
         death  from  problems  related to anesthesia while undergoing
         surgery.
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         In a laboratory in Paris where  researchers  were  conducting
         secret  research  to  determine whether an unnamed industrial
         product causes cancer, 6 of the workers have come  down  with
         various rare cancers and two have died.
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         Eel-skin wallets have been known to demagnetize credit cards.
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         Soviet scientists grew an orchid in space then returned it to
         earth. Before they could study it  fully,  someone  stole  it
         from the laboratory.
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         In 1987 or 1988, in Tennessee, Indiana and Illinois,  someone
         passed  bad  checks.   I  mean really bad.  This unidentified
         person purchased at least $800,000  of  merchandise  at  many
         stores,  but  with  counterfeit  checks.  To  avoid  eventual
         capture, the thief  coated  the  checks  with  some  sort  of
         chemical  that  caused  them to disintegrate within hours. By
         the time the checks reached the banks, they were nothing  but
         powder.
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         A party was held in Moscow to  celebrate  the  coronation  of
         Czar  Nicholas  II  in  1896.  Free  beer  was offered to the
         public, causing a massive stampede in which 5,000 people were
         killed in the crush.
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         There has been much speculation, but so far no  proof,  about
         what  caused 30 towns to disappear from the USSR in 1958. All
         we know is that map-makers quit putting the towns on maps  in
         an area of about 460 square miles.  Some people have proposed
         that a natural disaster, such as a meteor strike  could  have
         done it, others say a military experiment went haywire.
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         All  the  information in this database is reliably calculated
         from or based on what others have written. However,  you  may
         wish  to conduct your own research to make absolutely sure of
         the facts.
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         In the early days of television,  game  shows  in  which  the
         contestants   could   win   huge  prizes  were  common.   One
         fifty-four-year-old  woman  won   big   on   the   tv   show,
         "Temptation," and promptly died of a heart attack during live
         broadcasting.
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         During  the  1954  Cotton  Bowl,  a  halfback  was  close  to
         completing  a  95-yard touchdown with no opposition in sight,
         when Tommy Lewis, a fullback of  the  opposing team,  got  so
         excited  he  leaped  off  the  bench and tackled the halfback
         himself!
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         Response to emergencies by modern fire departments  are  very
         well  choreographed, but it wasn't always so.  In 1963, while
         the Matlock residence of New Hyde Park, NY was burning to the
         ground, the two fire departments which  responded  could  not
         put  out  the  fire, because they were too busy arguing about
         which department should do it.
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         When a girl in France was attacked by a molester who tried to
         kiss her, she bit off his tongue.
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         James Bartley was one of those guys who used to stand at  the
         very  front of a small boat and blast a harpoon into a whale.
         Things went quite wrong for him when a wounded  whale  turned
         around,  upset  his boat, causing him to fall into the water,
         then  swallowed  him. After awhile, his fellow whale-catchers
         killed the whale and started  cutting  it  up.   Inside  they
         found James, still alive but badly shaken up.
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         In  1955  at  the  famous road race of Le Mans, a driver lost
         control of his car, which after careening off a  wall,  broke
         up and showered the crowd with parts, killing 77 people.
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         The  IRS  came and took away the car from in front of a man's
         house because he had not paid all his  taxes.   But  the  car
         belonged to his neighbor.  The neighbor had to pay the towing
         company $78 to get his car back.  The IRS did  not  reimburse
         him.
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         When  the  Black  Plague  hit  England, more than half of the
         students at Oxford University died.
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         In the Chicago fire of 1871,  the  one  Mrs.   O'Leary's  cow
         supposedly  started  by  kicking  over a lantern, over 10,000
         houses were burned down before it was all over.
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         The 7,000-ton cargo ship, Fort Stikine  sailed  into  crowded
         Bombay  Harbor,  India  in  1944.  It was loaded with a mixed
         freight ranging from fish to cotton to explosives.  A  sailor
         noticed smoke coming out of a ventilator that serviced one of
         the  ship's cargo holds, but since it was close to lunchtime,
         he did not mention the problem. The  fire  in  the  hold  was
         discovered  after  lunch,  but  by  then it was raging out of
         control. Authorities suggested sinking the  ship,  but  since
         the harbor was crowded and shallow, it would have to sail out
         to  sea  to  be  scuttled.  No problem, but first the captain
         wanted to phone the ship's insurance company to see  if  they
         thought  it  a good idea. While he was on the phone, the ship
         blew up into a  million  pieces,  sinking  27  nearby  ships,
         raining  junk  all over downtown Bombay and killing well over
         1,000 people.
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         Recently  broadcast from a rural radio station:
             "There is a  tan  and  white  cow  wandering  around  the
         corner  of  Brookhurst  and E. Central. If it's yours, go get
         it."
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         Abraham Lincoln's mother died from drinking milk from  a  cow
         which  when  foraging  in  the woods, had eaten the poisonous
         snakeroot.
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         Perhaps because of the attention given to the attack on Pearl
         Harbor,  the  fact  that  a 45-foot high tidal wave destroyed
         much of the Hawaiian town of Hilo in 1946, is  little  known.
         173 people died.
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         Nicholas Alkemade's airplane was totaled in an air raid  over
         Nazi  Germany  and  he had to bail out from more than 3 miles
         up, without a parachute. As he fell, his speed accelerated to
         120 miles per hour. He landed in a snow-covered  pine  forest
         and was completely uninjured.
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         A man convicted of murder was electrocuted at Sing Sing. Just
         before  burial, he revived and jumped out of his coffin.  The
         authorities caught him and executed  him  again.  The  second
         attempt was permanent.
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         When  London  inventor  James Hetherington first wore his new
         invention, the top hat, in 1797, it caused quite a stir.   He
         was  immediately  thrown  in jail because he "appeared on the
         public highway wearing upon  his  head  a  tall  structure of
         shining luster and calculated to disturb timid people."
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         In  the  spring  of  1991  in  a  small  town  in  Oregon, an
         83-year-old lady was driving  her  car  when  the  driver  of
         another  car going the other way ejected a cigarette butt out
         of his car and it flew in her  open  window.   At  first  she
         thought  nothing of it other than a twinge of disgust, but in
         a few moments she noticed her blouse was on  fire.   Thinking
         quickly, she patted out the flame with one hand while driving
         a steady course with the other.  All she suffered was a minor
         burn  the  size  of a quarter below her neck.
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         Whether or not you  wear  a  bicycle  helmet  is  a  personal
         choice,  but  let me tell you about one woman I met.  She had
         had a collision with  a  car  and  struck  her  head  on  the
         pavement.  I  met  her  about  two  years after her accident.
         Approximately age 25, she looked and acted just fine  as  far
         as I could tell.  But she told me about her bizarre symptoms.
         After  she  woke  from her coma, she had no residual problems
         except one, which has not changed for  two  years,  now,  and
         appears  permanent.
             Somehow,  her brain is no longer able to discern a single
         object or event from a group.  If she is in a room where many
         people are talking, she cannot  hear  just  the  one  who  is
         talking  to  her.  If the television is on in the background,
         she cannot talk on a phone.  She cannot go shopping. A row of
         laundry soap in the supermarket looks like a complete row  of
         soap,  and  she  can't pick just one. She can't even see just
         one box of soap, she only sees them all at once.
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         The ultimate new car owner horror story:  A  college  student
         was  given  a new front-wheel drive car by her parents. After
         1200 miles, it was due for an oil change at the dealer, but a
         fellow student offered to change her oil for free. He figured
         this  would  be  a  good  way  to  get  her  attention.   She
         reluctantly  allowed  him to change the oil because it seemed
         so important to him to do so.
             He crawled under the front of the  car  and  removed  the
         transmission  drain  plug.  She commented that the oil seemed
         awfully thick. He said that was the way it is supposed to  be
         in  new  cars.   After  reinserting the transmission plug, he
         proceeded to put 4 quarts of oil in the  engine.   Now  there
         was no oil in the transmission and twice as much as there was
         room  for  in  the  engine. She drove a few miles and the car
         quit  working  properly.  The dealer towed it away, and after
         preparing a careful estimate, reported that  the  damage  was
         not  covered  by the warranty, being abuse, and repairs would
         cost $2400. Her friend got her attention alright!
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         The  first  person  to  die  from  radiation  poisoning,  and
         therefore  indicate  to previously uncautious scientists that
         radium was dangerous was Marie Curie.
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         Many  surgeons  have  been accused of sexual assault on their
         patients. Most of these allegations can be  proven  false  by
         witnesses,   etc.   But   the  cause  is  just  now  becoming
         understood. It seems that the  sedatives  given  to  patients
         before surgery can sometimes cause bizarre sexual fantasies.
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         Avoid  flying in an airplane if you have had dental work done
         within the previous day.  The changes  in  air  pressure  can
         cause pain.
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         An   elderly  couple in California, both  on  medication  for
         high   blood   pressure,  got  good  and  drunk,  against the
         advice of their doctor who prescibed the medicine, then  went
         hot tubbing. They both drowned.
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         Bees love junk food like hamburgers, soda and milk shakes. In
         urban  areas,  where  fast-food   restaurants   abound,   bee
         populations  have  expanded  tremendously.   Be  careful when
         eating outdoors because you may accidentally eat a bee who is
         trying to share your hamburger.  This would of course  result
         in a sting - inside your mouth!
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         Even   though   thousands  of  heart  transplants  have  been
         performed, imagine how scared you would be  if  you  were  to
         undergo  the  knife for that procedure. Then imagine how much
         worse you would feel when regaining conciousness, to find out
         that the doctors accidentally put the wrong heart in you, one
         that doesn't match your blood type and one which your body is
         very likely to reject, perhaps before another doner shows up!
         It was big news on August 16, 1991, when a doctor in Portland
         Oregon, made himself famous by making this very mistake. But,
         he wasn't  the  first.   It  happens  all  the  time.   Well,
         actually,  it has happened to at least 8 other people so far.
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         Not knowing CPR, when a son saw his father stop breathing due
         to a heart attack,  he  attacked  his  chest  with  a  toilet
         plunger and saved his life.  (This is not the recommended way
         to save lives.)
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         There  is  a disease, typically brought on by a minor stroke,
         called  prosopagnosia,  in   which  the  victim can no longer
         recognize faces. These patients  can  tell  they  are  seeing
         someone's face, but they cannot tell whose it is, even if the
         person is a close friend or relative.
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ALMANAC 1992, by Jeff Napier & Another Company