Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd Read Online Free PDF Page B

rolls. Some of the names he used on the forms: Mary Poppins, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Janet Jackson.
FAIL, FAIL AGAIN
    In May 2001, Shawn Myers drove his pickup truck to Lynn’s Market in Wellsville, Pennsylvania. Then he drove into Lynn’s Market. Backwards. He crashed through the plate-glass window and tried to steal the store’s ATM machine by dragging it out with a chain attached to the truck. It didn’t work. A few days later, he went back and crashed his truck through the plywood that was covering the broken window, and again tried to steal the ATM. Again he failed. A few days after that, he drove through the front window of nearby Rutter’s Farm Store. This time he actually made off down the street with the ATM bouncing along behind the truck…until it hit a parked car and broke free. Several months later, Myers returned to Lynn’s Market, drove through Lynn’s plate-glass window (again), chained up the ATM, and drove off. This time the ATM stayed with him; he got away and later broke into the machine…but there was no money in it. Myers was eventually arrested, ordered to pay thousands of dollars in restitution, and sentenced to six years in prison. He told the judge he only tried to steal the ATMs because he needed money for court costs from previous trials.
THAT WAS JUST PRACTICE
    Two men in Benicia, California, did almost everything right: Ski masks? Check. Semiautomatic handguns? Check. Burst into the bank and order everyone to lie down on the floor? Check. Get the money? Uh, there was no money. It was a credit union that didn’t use cash—at all. The two men ran away and were never caught.
    The town of Waterproof, Louisiana, has been flooded numerous times.

MARRY ME!
    …or I’ll throw this baby in the river! (And other strange wedding proposals.)
    W HO: Adam Sutton of Rome, Georgia
    PROPOSED TO: Erika Brussee
    HOW: By crashing a plane (with her in it). In 2006 Sutton talked Brussee into accompanying him on a “sightseeing trip” on a small chartered plane around Rome. But on the ground his family was waiting with a large tarp that read, “Will you marry me?” The pilot flew over the message. Brussee saw it. “The tarp was upside down,” she said later. “But I saw the word ‘marry.’ I turned to look at him…and that’s when we crashed.” The plane’s low altitude and speed caused it to go down and burst into flames at Richard B. Russell Regional Airport. The pilot needed surgery, but luckily everyone else was okay. (And she said “yes.”)
    WHO: Ugur San of Berlin, Germany
    PROPOSED TO: Melek, his girlfriend
    HOW: By subway train closed-circuit television. In December 2006, San used his position as an employee of the Berlin underground to make his unique proposal to his girlfriend Melek, whom he had met on one of the trains. He recorded the message, “Hello Melek, my angel. Since meeting you, I realize how beautiful life can be. Will you marry me?” and then had it transmitted on the trains for ten hours straight. (No word on whether she accepted.)
    WHO: Col. William Fitzhugh of Virginia
    PROPOSED TO: Ann Rousby of Maryland
    HOW: By threatening to drown her baby. Fitzhugh was a friend of George Washington and a supporter of the American Revolution. Long before that, in 1752, the 32-year-old proposed to the widowed Ann Rousby. She refused. He proposed again. She refused again. After five rejections, he grabbed her infant daughter, ran to his boat on the Patuxent River, and had his sailors row away. Once he was far enough out, he held the baby over the water and threatened to throw her in if Ann didn’t marry him. She marriedhim. They went on to have four children and were married until Ann’s death—43 years later.
    How many dogs appear in Shakespeare’s plays? Only one: Crab, in Two Gentlemen of Verona .
    WHO: “JP,” of Hendersonville, Tennessee
    PROPOSED TO: Undisclosed
    HOW: Via the Super Bowl. In 2006 a man identified only as “JP” started “My Super Proposal,” a Web site