Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page B

stains.”
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Washday worries: Dryers cause about 15,000 house fires each year, more than any other appliance .
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POINT & SHOOT

    Three stories to reinforce the fact: Guns are not toys!
    N OT QUITE SUPERMAN
In 2009 a Falmouth, Massachusetts, man bragged to a friend that if the friend shot a BB gun at him from across the room…he’d catch the pellet with his bare hand. So the friend picked up the gun and pulled the trigger. Good news: The man actually did snatch the BB out of the air with his hand. Bad news: The BB ended up lodged in his hand. He later explained to police at the hospital that the whole incident was just an “accident gone wrong.”

RUSSIAN TO THE HOSPITAL
    Two teenage boys—William Rafferty, 18, and a 16-year-old friend (not named in press reports)—were at a girl’s house in Norwell, Massachusetts. The boys decided to go back to Rafferty’s house, but before they did, they stole a snub-nosed revolver from her father’s safe. Then they decided to play a game of Russian roulette. Rafferty pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He handed it to his friend. Showing a little more sense, the boy aimed the gun at his thigh…and shot himself. Louellyn Lambros, Rafferty’s mom, drove him to the hospital, where she covered up for the boys, telling police that an intruder shot her son’s friend. When the girl’s father showed up to report the stolen gun, police arrested mom and son on a long list of charges.

BIG SHOT
    Lukas Neuhardt, 27, of Saarbruecken, Germany, wanted to impress his friends with “something big.” He thought carrying a loaded pistol would be pretty impressive, so he hid a gun in his pants pocket. Only problem: He forgot to put the safety catch on. Sure enough, the pistol went off, blasting a hole in Lukas’ pocket (and his “manhood”). To avoid embarrassment, he told paramedics that he’d been shot by a masked attacker. But the cops noticed that Lukas had a bullet hole inside his pocket and not on his pants. Doctors got his parts back in working order, but now he’s facing three years in prison for breaking Germany’s strict gun laws.
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The International Pole Dancing Fitness Association is trying to make pole dancing an Olympic sport .
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THAT GUY IN THE UPPER
DECK IS GYRATING

    He entertains most of the fans in the stands—and frightens a few. And he’s everywhere. Just who is this mysterious sports nut?
    F AN-SPASTIC
When Cameron Hughes attends a sporting event, he never goes unnoticed. It’s not just that he’s a husky, six-foot-tall man with fiery red hair sitting in the cheap seats. No matter how well or badly the home team is doing, he cheers into his megaphone, jumps up and down, pumps his fists—whatever it takes to get the fans around him excited. And in really desperate times—like when the home team is getting shellacked—Hughes does his infamous “stripper dance”: Slowly, he removes one of his 10 or so layered T-shirts, holds it up over his head, twirls it in the air, and then throws it. Then he starts gyrating. “I’m that guy,” he says, “the funny, happy, dancing, possibly very drunk guy you’ve seen at the ballpark at least once.”
    Is he crazy? You might think so—and you might think he owns his own jet if you’ve noticed him cheering wildly at a Los Angeles Lakers game one night, a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game a few days later, and a Detroit Red Wings hockey game a few days after that. And then he’s off to do his thing at a high-school football game in Duluth. And at every venue, it’s always the same schtick: Cheer, jump, and dance.
    And he never has to buy a ticket.

ALL THE STADIUM’S A STAGE
    For 15 years, Hughes has been a “fan for hire”—teams pay him anywhere from $1,000 to $2,500 just to show up and be himself. It adds up to a lucrative career: Working more than 80 games per year, Hughes earns somewhere in the “six figures” (he won’t say how much).
    It all began, quite