Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2 by John Michael Scalzi Read Free Book Online Page A

corpse in an air-conditioned storage locker for three months.
    And yet, that’s what “Len” did after his father passed on (from natural causes) in a motel in Osceola County, Florida, in March 2004. To be fair to Len, even he knew that jamming dad into a storage locker wasn’t the right thing to do. But Len was in a bind: he’d heard that funerals are expensive these days (and they are: the average one goes for about six grand), and he didn’t have that kind of cash lying around. But he did have the $68.48 a month for a 5-by-10-foot storage locker. So, after wrapping up pop in a drop cloth and a garbage bag and telling his mom that he was taking her deceased spouse to a funeral home, he slipped his father into the locker. For three months.
    We realize you’re probably not a forensic scientist or anything, but take an educated guess here: what do you think happens to a human body after three months in a storage locker? If you guessed “I’m pretty sure it would start to smell—really bad, ” you’re ready for a guest shot on CSI Miami. Indeed, dad’s decomposing body started to smell—really bad. The managers of the storage facility (who did notknow what was in the storage locker) kept calling Len to tell him he needed to check his storage space because it smelled like something died in there. Perhaps, they were thinking maybe just a rodent.
    Realizing he couldn’t keep dad in storage for much longer, Len made a decision. To come clean and properly bury dad? Well, no. His next step was to transfer dad from the storage locker to a rented U-Haul truck (“Adventures in Moving” indeed!) and then park that truck in front of his own house. Len failed to appreciate that a body that smells bad in an air-conditioned storage locker doesn’t smell any better in the back of a U-Haul baking in the sun. Soon the neighbors started complaining about the smell. After confiding in a friend, Len eventually came clean to the authorities and cut a deal with them to properly put his poor dad to rest.
    It turns out that if you can’t afford to bury someone, generally speaking your local authorities can help you find a way to do it, since it’s not a good idea to leave bodies lying around—stuffed in storage lockers or otherwise. Give it some thought before you have to lie to the storage facility manager about what you’re keeping in that space you’re renting.
    Source: Local10.com , wftv.com , Orlando Sentinel

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does the duffel bag cost extra?
    W e’ve got a personality test for you. You’re at the beach, when a guy comes up to you with an infant in a duffel bag and asks you if you’d be interested in buying. Do you:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  1.    Haggle on a price;
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  2.    Smile weakly at the guy’s clearly lame sense of humor and walk away briskly; or
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  3.    Call the cops on the sick loser?
    No, no, you don’t really have to answer; we know all of you picked 3 ( right? ). And the reason for this is pretty obvious: sure, it’s funny when Monty Python sells off a passel of children for medical experiments in The Meaning of Life, but in the real world, the idea of jocularly suggesting to strangers that you’d be willing to part with your baby, who you keep in a duffel bag, is creepy and wrong. Everybody know this.
    Well, almost everyone. Then there’s “Joe,” a young Pennsylvania father. Joe and his wife were at the beach in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, with their four-month-old son, when the wind whipped up and started blowing sand around. To protect their child from the elements, the couple advisedly placed their infant in an open duffel bag. And that’s when Joe got the “bright” idea of walking up to total strangers, showing them the incongruous sight of a baby in a bag, and asking