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Wed 13 Nov, 2002 04:01 pm
From the "Dumb and Dumber" Department.
"Man Wedged in Chimney Blames Mary Poppins
Wed Nov 13,11:05 AM ET
FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - It may work for Santa Claus and the singing chimney sweep in "Mary Poppins," but one Texas man found out that going down the chimney was no way to enter a home after he became wedged in the smoke stack.
Mark Vaughn was trying to help his family get back into their home in Fort Worth after they locked themselves out.
When his mother-in-law told him to get a locksmith, Vaughn said he got the idea of going down the chimney. His inspiration was the character of the chimney sweep played by actor Dick Van Dyke in the movie "Mary Poppins," which he had recently seen.
"What prompted me? I was watching the Dick Van Dyke movie a few weeks ago, you know the chimney sweeper movie," Vaughn told reporters Tuesday.
Vaughn said he thought he was going to make it all the way down the chimney, but he got stuck near the bottom. After about 30 minutes in the chimney, Vaughn realized he could go no further and yelled out for help.
His family called for the fire department, and as he waited in the shaft, Vaughn said his arms and legs went numb.
Rescue workers carefully dismantled the chimney brick by brick and after about an hour, they opened a hole large enough to free Vaughn.
"In trying to get the person out, you have to do a lot of manipulation of the brick and mortar, which can transmit a lot of injury to the person inside," said James Johns, a fire battalion chief.
A grateful Vaughn, his face black with soot, shook hands with the firefighters who rescued him and said the episode left him shaken."
When I was a kid, one of the boys on the block wanted to be like Superman, so he jumped off a high porch, and gave himself a fractured skull. 
Do you know of any other people who have done stupid things because of what they had seen on either movies or TV?
It quickly brought to mind the story of the lady who decided to dry off her poodle by putting it in the microwave! She hadn't seen "Gremlins."
Leno's Headlines comes up with a lot of dumb criminal items in the paper -- I'll listen up.
I've always said that crime don't pay because of the caliber of the people who go into the profession . . . there's a feature in a local humor newspaper dedicated entirely to stupid criminals . . . like the guy who robbed a convenient store, and fled into the woods to elude police--who followed him by the light of his running shoes, which had the little lights in the heel . . . or the guy who broke into a convenient store, and was apprehended because he filled in a ticket for a drawing and left it on the counter . . .
one of my favorites......
Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.
How about the would be bank robber who filled out a deposit slip while awaiting the correct time to approach the counter, only to have the same deposit slip with his personal information on it be also on the reverse "this is a stick up"
dopes!
Back in the early 80s, a friend of mine that I had gone through with high school with followed me into the Air Force. She ended up stationed in MS and married to the AF equeal of a "Military Policeman" and eventually she got pregnant. Now, junior enlisted folks don't get paid a whole lot (in their case, about $20K/year between the 2 of them..) so teh brillinat chap that she married decided to visit the base bank on his lunch hour. He drove right up in front in his police cruiser, walked inside in full uniform and used his issued M-16 to rob the place before going back on patrol.
I wonder if he's out of Leavenworth yet? lol Dumb dumb dumb....
The worst:
A man goes up to a bank teller, writing on a piece of paper 'this is a stick up'.
The teller says 'I'm sorry, you must have an account to rob a bank'
'Oh, too bad' the man walks away.
right...
Or:
A man decides to use his car to rob a vending machine. he ties his licence plate to a chain, and ties that to the front of the machine.
He drives off, the license plate being ripped off. So, he leaves the chain still attached to the vending machine. And his license plate still attached to the chain.
Or, if we extend this into court:
Judge: "Are you guilty of murder"
Suspect: "Before I answer that, I just want to explain why I killed the man"
erm...
Finally (though I'm not sure if this should count):
A llawyer defends his client, saying that it was the mans arm who stole the thing, so he shouldn't be punished for the arms actions.
The judge agrees, sentencing the arm, and saying the man can choose to accompany it if he wants.
The suspect smiles, stands up, leaves his artificial arm on the bench and walks out.
This has restored my faith in human nature (and I just plain refuse to mention the guy who used jedi mind tricks on the police. Seriously.)
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