1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (128 page)

980

FACT :
Employees at a New York City game store wound up trapped inside for hours when
thousands of bees
swarmed around the entrance in 2009.
There was a lot of buzz about a new game that had just arrived.

Associated Press, “Buzz Off! Bee Swarm Traps Workers in NY Game Store,” May 23, 2009,
www.newsvine.com
.

981

FACT :
“Jigsaw Kid” is the nickname of a six-year-old UK girl born with two left lungs, five spleens, a diseased liver, a hole in her heart, and her stomach on the wrong side.
Most of her organs face front-to-back
, and when her heart pumps rapidly, you can see it beating through her back.
On the bright side, I’m sure she loves being called “Jigsaw Kid.” Children aren’t sensitive to that sort of thing at all.

“‘Jigsaw Kid’ Lives with Jumbled Up Internal Organs,” Daily Mail, May 22, 2009,
www.telegraph.co.uk
.

982

FACT :
In 2009, doctors in Izhevsk, Russia found a branch from
a fir tree germinated inside the lungs of a man
suffering from seizures and coughing up blood.
I say leave it in there, let it grow. He could save some money at the holidays and be his own Christmas tree.

“Fir Tree Grows Inside Man’s Lungs,” Pravda.Ru, April 15, 2009,
www.bizarrenews.org
.

983

FACT :
One percent of the entire population in Greenland
reside in one apartment building
called Blok P.
Luckily, Greenland’s population is only like, 100 people, so Blok P is really just a one-bedroom flat.

eBizarre,
www.ebizarre.com
.

984

FACT :
In 2009,
a Black Angus calf was born in Colorado with seven legs
, two spines, and two hooves on one leg. The calf only survived for ten minutes.
I hope they ate it. That’s a lot of veal.

“Calf In Colorado Born With 7 Legs, 2 Spines,” Steamboat Pilot & Today, May 23, 2009,
www.kirotv.com
.

985

FACT :
A Wyoming man saved his dog’s life in 2009 when he sucked venom from a rattlesnake bite
out his dog’s nose
. The man required four vials of antivenin—at $3,500 a pop.
Know what would suck?

If the dog got hit by a car the next day and died. I bet that guy would be pissed, not about the money so much as the mouthful of dog snot.

“Man Saves Dog By Sucking Venom From Nose,” Casper Star-Tribune, May 22, 2009,
www.trib.com
.

986

FACT :
The
Vatican started a Facebook page
in 2009, gathering 45,000 contacts and 500,000 page views within days of launch.
The “How Well Do You Know Saint Eusebius of Vercelli?” quiz is a big hit.

Ariel David, “Vatican Launches Facebook Application,”
kirotv.com
, May 22, 2009,
www.kirotv.com
.

987

FACT :
A twenty-three-year-old New Zealand mother lost 88 pounds and suffered a heart attack
after drinking nothing but Red Bull
—from ten to fourteen cans a day—for eight months.
Her friends call her “The Great Cornholio,” after the beloved
Beavis & Butt-Head
character.

“Traces of Cocaine Found in Red Bull Cola,”
NEWS.com.au
, May 26, 2009,
www.news.com.au
.

988

FACT :
A 2009 study by a leading fossil expert suggests that
modern humans hunted and ate Neanderthals
, a sturdy species that mysteriously disappeared 30,000 years ago as modern humans migrated to Europe.
We preferred to eat wild buffalo back then, but Neanderthals were slower.

Robin McKie, “How Neanderthals Met a Grisly Fate: Devoured by Humans,” The Observer, May 17, 2009,
www.guardian.co.uk
.

989

FACT :
Protein is rare in some parts of Kenya, so
natives drink cow’s blood
for nourishment instead.
I think I’d rather eat a Neanderthal.