We all like to think that we know how to keep ourselves safe, for the most part. We take precautions, we yell “Careful!” at our kids just after they’ve fallen over, and we keep two stocks of Band-Aids in the house so that our kids can use up the entire first stock because their knee is itchy.
But the thing is, you never know. There are dangers you haven’t even thought of, lurking around every corner. You never know when bad things will happen. So the important thing is that when something bad does happen, we should look at the story and ask ourselves, “What’s the takeaway? What lesson can I apply to my own life, and to the lives of others who will eventually learn to stop showing me these articles?”
Otherwise, these things happened for nothing. And that’s a shame.
Our first story today involves a man in Chile who vanished last year under mysterious circumstances. Officials searched everywhere and could not find him.
Such a tragedy. Who would kidnap this guy? He worked for a frozen-foods company, and was making the equivalent of $7,600 a year. What kind of ransom are you expecting here?
And it was such a shame too, because the day before he’d disappeared, he’d been accidentally issued a paycheck for 330 times his normal salary. What a shame. And a weird coincidence.
I don’t know if this is pertinent information that I’m saying here. We can ask him if he turns up in 6 years from now with a major suntan.
The man originally reported the mistake to his manager, who brought it up with HR, and the man had agreed to go to the bank and bring in the money the next day, but he failed to show up. And that was the last they heard from him.
Also, the money seems to be missing. The bank no longer has it. I don’t know.
The name of the man was not released to the public, probably out of respect for his privacy at this difficult time. We just know his salary.
On a related note, there’s now an opening at this company, if you’re interested.
The Takeaway: I know this is a downer, but if something good happens in an unexpected way, be careful, because there might be something bad waiting for you around the corner. Hashem likes to keep the scales balanced.
Our next story today is about a family in China who raised a dog for two years, only to suddenly realize that it was a bear.
This whole story raises so many questions, though. First of all, how did they get it? One would have to assume that the items in the pet store are clearly labeled. Did they buy it on the black market? Did they get it from a box at the side of the road that said “puppies”? Did they find it? How did they not get mauled by the mother?
How did they find out it was a bear? Were they teaching it dog tricks? Were they walking it?
“Boy, this guy really likes fish! And honey!”
“Boy, he takes really long naps in the winter!”
Was it that he was suddenly bigger than them? Or that he sometimes walked on two legs? Were all the other dogs avoiding it at the dog park?
They had to be walking this every day. Nobody said anything?
So I looked into it, and supposedly, they’d bought it during a vacation. Most people come home with like a schnapps glass, but they came home with a pet. They thought it was a Tibetan mastiff puppy, which grows to be about 150 pounds, but then at some point it hit 250, and the family was like, “I don’t think it’s a dog. Also the mailman’s missing.”
It took them 2 long years to realize that their dog was a bear. The mother told reporters that she was initially surprised that the dog would eat a box of fruits and two buckets of noodles every day.
I mean my kids do that. Not the fruits.
The Takeaway: Get your pets only from an authorized dealer. Take it from me. For the past year I thought I was raising chickens; turns out they were ostriches.
The eggs are humongous, though.
We can’t eat them, but just you wait until Halloween.
Before we begin our next story, I need to preface it by saying that I normally don’t write about fatalities, because I like to keep this column light, but I decided to include this anyway because we’re trying to learn important safety lessons here.
Anyway, our next story concerns an 8-year-old boy in India who was playing in his backyard one afternoon when a cobra jumped out of nowhere and sank its teeth into his hand. The cobra then wrapped itself around his arm, and try as he might, he couldn’t shake it off him. So the kid decided to take a page out of the snake’s playbook and (Warning: sensitive material ahead) he bit the snake. Twice. And the snake stopped moving.
Hey, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was given an anti-snake venom. The snake died, because there is no anti-boy venom.
The Takeaways:
1. No biting! Biting has never solved anything. Except this. Also, 8-year-old boys are dangerous.
2. I know we’re taught in kindergarten not to bite, but if an animal bites you, maybe bite it back; that might help.
Exceptions I can think of so far:
• Sharks
• Bears
• Ostriches
• Skunks
• Mosquitoes
• Alligators
Our next story today concerns a man in Illinois who had a very realistic dream one night that his home had been broken into by an intruder. So he grabbed his handgun and opened fire.
Turns out, though, that he grabbed his handgun in real life too, and shot himself in the leg. That woke him up. As well as everyone else in the house. And the neighbors in the attached house, who called the cops.
See, this is why I sleep with a baseball bat. I’ve never baseball batted myself in the leg.
No, I’m just kidding. I don’t own sports equipment.
Anyway, police showed up at the house and confirmed that there was in fact no burglary, but that the man’s firearms license was no longer valid, at least for this. So they charged him.
Also, he’d lost a significant amount of blood, so they rushed him to the hospital.
Imagine this poor guy, though: He has a dream that he’s defending his home and his family and a talking dog-bear from a criminal, and he wakes up and he’s the one who gets charged. And he has a hole in his leg. It was a nightmare. And his wife is talking about sleeping in a different room, just in case. How is he going to keep her safe? This is why he bought the firearm in the first place!
The man is an attorney, by the way. I don’t know why I’m mentioning this.
The Takeaway: I’ve never been big on guns, but more and more these days, I get it. You never know when you’re going to be called upon to defend your family in your dreams by shooting yourself in the foot.
That said, you want to keep your gun in a safe place and your bullets in an entirely different safe place, so that way, if something ever goes down, you can have the intruder wait around while you go to two opposite ends of the house. That way, no one ever gets shot.
Our final story today is about a family in California who came out of their cabin one morning to see a bear in the back seat of their SUV.
Fortunately for them, all the doors were closed. And that was a good thing too, because the bear was tearing apart the inside of the car trying to get out. Apparently, bears know how to open unlocked car doors from the outside, but not from the inside.
So they called the cops, who showed up, and after confirming that the bear was not, in fact, a dog, they considered their options.
Obviously, they wanted to let it out, but no one wanted to be the one to open the door, especially since doing so would mean standing directly in the animal’s route back to the woods.
So the deputies developed a plan that involved tying a really long rope to the rear right door handle, pulling on the rope from 50 feet away while standing behind a tree, and then running like that guy in Chile. Except for one person, who had to stand there and film it.
And as soon as they did so, the bear quickly climbed out of the car, turned left toward the woods, and immediately ran into the rope.
I wonder what Chaveirim would have done.
The Takeaway: Especially in the summer months, always check the back seat of your car for bears, children, Uber passengers, etc. that you may have picked up earlier and forgotten about. Cars can get really hot.
Also, leave one of those window-smashy gadgets inside your glove compartment, so the bear can get out just in case. n
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of seven books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com. Read more of Mordechai Schmutter’s articles at 5TJT.com.
