Blow-Up
Here at the Consumer Command Post ("Working To Make Your World More Threatening") we continue to receive alarming news items clipped out by alert readers who have somehow obtained scissors from their ward attendants. In accordance with our rigorous standards of accuracy, we have checked all of these submissions carefully to determine whether they contain any money, and now we are passing them along to you, the public, in hopes that you will be better able to make wise consumer choices and live a safer, healthier, and happier existence until such time as you burst into flames.This is a very real possibility, according to a Science Digest article alertly mailed to us by Thomas Miller of Des Moines, Iowa ("More Than Just Pigs"). The article concerns spontaneous human combustion, which is when people, with no apparent cause, suddenly start burning like campfire marshmallows, reaching temperatures of thousands of degrees and being completely reduced to ashes. This is often fatal.
There are more than 200 reported cases of spontaneous human combustion, which can happen to anybody, anytime. "Persons have ignited while walking, driving, boating, and even dancing," notes Science Digest, reminding us of a number of evenings in the ninth grade when we, personally, came extremely close to erupting in flames right in the Harold C. Crittenden Junior High School cafeteria while dancing the Dirty Dig with Chad Smayada to the song "Unchained Melody." Strangely, in many spontaneous human combustion cases, the area immediately around the victim is unaffected by the fire, although the ceiling and walls of the room are covered with oily soot.
No doubt you are asking yourself: "Is there anything that I, as an individual consumer, can do about this alarming problem?" Fortunately, there is. We've done some tests here at the Consumer Command Post, and we've found that you can get those walls looking "spick-and-span" again simply by scrubbing them with a mixture of detergent and warm water.
We feel we should warn you, however, that it is not a wise idea to put too many beauty products in your hair. We base this warning on a news article from The State of Columbia, South Carolina, concerning a South Carolina woman who has filed a lawsuit claiming that her hair burst into flames becauseof the effect of the sun shining on two hair-care products that she was wearing. One of her attorneys is quoted -- we are not making this up -- as offering the following explanation:
"The whole thing is that she just put them on her head, both products, and -- it was a hot day at that -- and her head just spontaneously combusted."
Here's what gets our goat: Right now, the world scientific community is having multiple laboratory orgasms, just because some scientists might have discovered a "cold fusion" process whereby if you put atoms into a jar according to a certain recipe you might get a reaction that might someday be an important new energy source, but not until -- trust us on this -- the scientific community obtains a large ammount of tax money donated by interested consumers. Meanwhile, here we have a South Carolina woman who, acting on her own, has apparently stumbled upon a proven energy-producing reactioin requiring only a couple of readily available personal-grooming substances plus a human head! Think of the possibilities! We could see the day, in our lifetimes, when a city the size of Baltimore, such as San Francisco, could have all of its electrical power needs met for a decade simply by harnessing the latent hairstyle energy of a single Republican Woman's Club.
But we must not start rejoicing yet, not while we still face an ongoing epidemic of exploding items, a story we have been covering relentlessly for several months now in an unselfish effort to win a large cash journalism prize. So far we have reported the mysterious explosions of a snail, a cow, numerous pigs, and a human stomach, and we were asking ourselves: What next? And sure enough the answer was: municipal toilets. These were located in a courthouse in Seattle, where, according to news items sent in by approximately 40,000 alert readers, somebody connected an air compressor to the water line, so that when people attempted to flush, they were suddenly attacked by the Geyser From Hell. We can only hope that these people were not attorneys about to make important court appearances. ("Your Honor, may I approach the bench?" "No.")
And if you think that this is just an isolated incident, you are, no offense, an idiot. According to an Associated Press article alertly sent in by Lisa Hoffman, three people in Fordyce, Arkansas, were injured when somebody accidentally allowed propane to get into the city water supply, thus essentially transforming some toilets into bombs. Here is an actual quote from one of the victims: "Whomp, the commode burst into flames."
Well, consumers, we're out of space here, so unfortunately we can't report some of our other items, such as the one sent in by Charles Popelka concerning the woman in Ottumwa, Iowa ("It's Flat, But It's Quiet"), who encountered the exploding potato. But rest assured that, in the months ahead, we will continue to provide you consumers with information that will enable you to become sufficiently alarmed about the lethal threats that are all around us in everyday objects such as this keyboard that we are typing on, which we notice seems to be emitting some kind of WHOM.
Back to Franni's Pompous Page!