Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Zipper Accidents (13 page)

POTTY BREAK

Longtime CNBC host Bill Griffeth was interviewing former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in April 2009 when the show was suddenly interrupted by the unmistakable (and very loud) sound of a toilet flushing. Griffeth paused, his head jerked to his left, his eyes narrowed, and, as the sound of the toilet receded, he said, “Anyway, we’re going to take a quick break here…” and the show cut to commercial. A member of the technical staff had apparently forgotten to turn another guest’s microphone off while they were doing their business. Griffeth didn’t mention the gaffe when the show resumed.

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n 1995 NFL Hall of Famer O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson may have been acquitted, but the court of public opinion found him guilty. Simpson’s career as an actor and pitchman (for Hertz and HoneyBaked Ham) was over. In a 1997 civil suit brought by Goldman’s family, Simpson was found liable in the deaths and ordered to pay Goldman’s family $33.5 million.

Initially, Simpson managed to avoid paying because California law protected his NFL pension. But the Goldmans didn’t back down, and in 1999, Simpson auctioned off his Heisman Trophy and other memorabilia to pay the Goldmans $500,000. To avoid paying more (and to escape a $1-million-plus back-taxes bill), Simpson moved to Florida to protect his estate.

In December 2001, FBI agents searched his Florida home after receiving a tip that he was involved in a drug-trafficking ring. Authorities didn’t find any narcotics on the premises, but they did discover that O.J. was pirating cable, leading to tens of thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees.

A year later, Simpson was caught speeding a 30-foot powerboat through a wildlife-protection zone and got hit with another fine. But despite his various run-ins with the law, he was still a free man.

Then, on the night of September 13, 2007, Simpson and a group of men burst into Bruce Fromong’s room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Simpson was convinced that Fromong, a sports memorabilia dealer, had stolen some of his NFL mementos. Simpson and the group fled the scene after nabbing several items. The following day, he told a
Los Angeles Times
reporter that he wasn’t a suspect. “I’m O. J. Simpson. How am I going to think that I’m going to rob somebody and get away with it?” He also contrarily quipped, “I thought what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.”

Unfortunately for Simpson, one of his accomplices brought a tape recorder along on the crime. The former NFL star was arrested a few days later on charges that included robbery and conspiracy. Simpson was found guilty on all charges and was sentenced to prison in December 2008. The presiding judge offered him little leniency and demanded that eight of the ten counts run concurrently for a maximum sentence of 33 years. Simpson is currently incarcerated in the Lovelock Correctional Center in Pershing County, Nevada, and is eligible for parole in 2017.

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n 2011 a bouncy house took flight during a youth soccer tournament on Long Island. A gust of wind caught the structure and carried it across a field, causing it to collide with two real houses and several bystanders. Parents rushed to the scene and frantically tried to grab hold of the flying house, to no avail. Thirteen people were injured by the time it finally came to a halt.

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A May 2011 fifth-grade graduation party in Tucson, Arizona, went horribly awry after a bouncy house got caught in a sudden gust of wind. The young grads inside all managed to escape before the house broke free and wrapped itself around a light pole. Six onlookers were hurt by flying debris.

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Also in Arizona in 2011, two 10-year-olds were seriously injured during a cultural festival when a freak dust storm blew a bouncy castle they were in 15 feet into the air, over a fence, and across a busy highway.

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A Pennsylvania man died in June of 2010 after sustaining injuries inside a bouncy house at a Cleveland Indians game. One of the inflatable sides collapsed, leaving him pinned underneath.

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In January 2011, winds carried another bouncy house away during a Florida birthday party. A five-year-old girl was caught inside. She was rescued by neighbors after the house landed in a pond.

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Inflatable houses and other attractions are still banned at many church festivals in southwest Ohio. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati issued a decree after an inflatable slide flipped over during a softball tournament in 2009. Wind threw the slide 70 yards and sent an 11-year-old boy along with it. Amazingly enough, he walked away from the accident with only a few bruises.

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woman in Kissimmee, Florida, called 911 in April 2009 and said she was stuck in her car. “I cannot open my door. I can’t get the windows down. Nothing electrical works,” she told the dispatcher, adding, “and it’s just getting very hot in here.” The dispatcher asked the woman if she had tried to pull up the manual locks on the doors. The woman unlocked her door, got out, and apologized.

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In October 2011, a man in Hertfordshire, England, called 999 (the British equivalent of 911), and said, “There’s something flying over our house. It’s coming towards me now. I don’t know what the hell it is!” The dispatcher spent several minutes taking the man’s information, then told him she was contacting air authorities. The man called back a few minutes later, having figured out what the object was. “It’s the moon,” he said.

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Also in October 2011, a woman in Danvers, Massachusetts, called 911 to say that she, her husband, and her two children were lost. “I’m really scared,” she said. “And we’ve got a baby with us,” she added tearfully. The dispatcher tried to keep the woman calm, and a police K-9 unit rushed to the family’s location—a Halloween maze cut into a cornfield. They were about 25 feet from the exit.

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n the early days of home video, up until the mid-1980s, video rental stores tended to be small operations, run locally, with a limited selection of titles. That changed with the arrival of Blockbuster Video, which opened its first four stores in the Dallas, Texas, area in 1985 and 1986. The difference: Blockbuster had a computerized checkout system and a whopping 8,000 titles in stock. The concept was clearly prime for success, and the small chain was sold to a group of investors with national chain experience. By the late 1990s, Blockbuster dominated the home video market, with more than 1,000 stores in the U.S.