The 7 Most Ridiculous Cases of Misplaced Priorities
We've all had moments when our priorities weren't quite in line, like the time you punched a kid for mispronouncing "Kenobi" or reported your babysitter to child services so you could steal back your Hobgoblin Pog. And then there are the people who make those decisions seem rational and appropriate.
Man Chooses to Get Shot Rather Than Hand Over Cell Phone
It may not surprise a lot of you that there are people out there who treasure their cell phones. Hell, it's not uncommon to hear of people risking electrocution on train tracks to retrieve their dropped gadgets. There's even one guy who, after dropping his phone into a public toilet, reached into it and got stuck arm to elbow, eventually requiring the freaking jaws of life.
But then there's the case of New Yorker Marcin Muchalski, who was taking a morning stroll along the Williamsburg Bridge when a mugger surprised him, took out a gun and demanded his cell phone.
Not believing that the robber had the balls to actually shoot him in the middle of the Williamsburg Bridge at seven in the morning, and not wanting to hand over his most prized possession, Marcin essentially dared his assailant to pry the Nokia 3390 off his cold, dead hands.
The robber happily obliged Marcin's request and proceeded to shoot him in the leg. Now, here's where most people would count their losses and hand over the damn cellphone, but Marcin wasn't quite finished pissing in the face of death.
Marcin began to limp away as fast as he could, still holding on to his phone. The mugger, who actually had his priorities slightly more in line, decided not to give chase and risk a murder charge over a friggin' Nokia. Still, he was arrested after Marcin got to a safe distance and called the NYPD -- using his cell phone.
Though, to be fair to Marcin, people have risked getting shot for less ...
Man Refuses to Release His Gamer Login Info at Gunpoint
When you're a Brazilian video game champion, you come to expect a certain amount of celebrity status. That amount is zero. None. You have no celebrity.
That all changed when the top scorer of a game called GunBound, known only by his username DuduMagik, got on Brazilian gang leader Igor da Silva Carvalho's radar. Carvalho hatched a plot to kidnap Dudu in order to get the password to his account, which he planned to then sell online in the most rational and totally not ridiculous extortion scheme of all time.
Carvalho had his girlfriend meet Dudu in an online chat room, then presumably had her make strong insinuations that there would be a forest of naked boobies in the gamer's future if they met at the mall. Dudu fell for it, and when he got to the mall, Carvalho and two of his cronies ambushed him and took him at gunpoint to a nearby LAN cafe, demanding that he give up his account password.
But there's something these master criminals weren't counting on. Apparently, Dudu's entire list of priorities included one thing and one thing only: his goddamn video game score.
With a gun to his head and three gangsters screaming at him to give up his password, Dudu stood his ground. For over five hours. According to our Brazilian sources, and the always-accurate Google Translate, "The person responsible for account DuduMagik ... still not provided the correct password for the transfer, causing the cancellation of the group that released it then." Uh ... we think that means they let Dudu go after he gave them bullshit passwords for a few hours.
So, despite valuing his video game score more than his life and taunting gun-toting kidnappers with fake passwords for five hours, Dudu somehow lived to tell his ridiculous tale. Carvalho and company were later caught and arrested, presumably while holding someone hostage for their Netflix account.
Woman Runs Into Burning House to Save Baseball Tickets
When New Jersey teacher Marie Murphy got a call telling her that her house was on fire, she promptly dropped everything and rushed to the scene. She wasn't scared for anyone's life, because she knew that her husband and her mother, who had been staying with them, were both safely outside the blaze. Instead, Murphy was determined to save her most prized possessions -- and not even a goddamn inferno was going to stand in her way.
What was so important that Murphy would literally risk burning to death to salvage? Baseball tickets. More specifically, her season tickets to the Phillies.
Heroically ignoring every single one of her other possessions (including a certificate of fire insurance, which we might have at least taken a slight detour for), Murphy reached her baseball tickets and made it out in time to see everything else that she owned swallowed by remorseless hellfire.
Although Murphy and her husband were forced to live in a motel for some time after the blaze, they were at least able to settle everything with their insurance company. And Murphy was even surprised at her school by the Phillies Fanatic who tossed a bunch of Phillies merchandise at her, including a framed World Series Ticket.
It was probably around this time that Murphy fully realized how ridiculous her rescue mission had been, because she was told that the Phillies would have gladly reprinted her tickets had they burned in the fire.
Woman Cares About Her Child, Cares More About Her Car
In 2006, Stamford resident Guita Sazan Silverstein made the incredible decision to leave her two-year-old son in her car on a hot summer day while she did some shopping -- because as we all know bad things only happen to poor children that nobody cares about. When she returned, she was horrified to discover that she had locked herself out of the car and couldn't get in. With the temperature at 88 degrees, her child was at serious risk of heat stroke.
When the firefighters arrived, they informed Silverstein that in order to get her son out quickly, they would need to break one of the car windows. Silverstein, understanding the urgency and severity of the situation, heroically said no.
Silverstein didn't want firefighters to damage her 1999 Audi, but she understood that her son needed to get out of the car, so she came up with a compromise: drive over a mile to her home to get her spare set of keys. Keep in mind that her son had been in the hot car for 15 to 20 minutes at this point.
After she borrowed a car to drive home, the firefighters ignored her wishes and broke the window anyway because they weren't complete fucking retards. The two-year-old boy was initially unresponsive, but thankfully recovered fully. When Silverstein returned, she was placed under arrest for reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor, and for being just a daffy bastard in general.
Silverstein claimed that the reason she didn't want the window broken was that she was worried that the glass would hurt her son. You know, because she just then at that exact moment started worrying about his safety.
Hospital is Starstruck, Screws Over Heart Attack Victim
In early 2005, the late Michael Jackson threw up in his car on his way to his child molestation trial. We could make a lot of comedy guesses as to the cause, but the symptoms suggested that the 46-year-old Jackson had stomach flu. He was rushed to the Marion Medical Center so that he could be properly treated.
When Jackson was brought into the emergency room, one of its occupants was Manuela Gomez Ruiz, an elderly woman who was recovering from a heart attack -- which you may recognize as being a serious medical condition. The staff of the Marion Medical Center, bound by their duty to care for those in need, removed Ruiz from her ventilator and took her to a smaller room to give the flu-stricken King of Pop more room.
Think about that for a moment. This is a hospital, removing a heart attack patient from the emergency room for someone with stomach flu.
"Well if you made the best-selling album of all time, maybe we could have done our jobs properly."
Ruiz was in such dire straits that her breathing was being assisted with a hand pump as she was being moved, begging the question why it crossed anyone's mind to disconnect her in the first place. She tragically suffered another heart attack and died.
Her family was understandably outraged, and expressed interest in suing both the hospital and Jackson. We can't imagine they had much luck though; everyone knows that celebrities are just better than normal people.
Jackson fans can take solace in the fact that he was released from the hospital after 33 hours, free to continue his long, fruitful career for years to come.
Woman Assaults Roommate Over Girl Scout Cookies
One night, a Florida woman named Hersha Howard was craving some Thin Mints -- a popular variety of Girl Scout cookie (if you didn't already know this, congratulations -- you hate freedom). But as she searched her home for them, Howard was shocked to discover that the cookies were gone. She soon began to suspect that the one responsible was her hilariously named roommate, Jasmin Wanke.
At around 1 a.m., Howard confronted Wanke, accusing her of stealing the Thin Mints. Howard then did what any rational, sane person would do: She beat the everloving monkey shit out of her thieving roommate.
Eventually, Wanke's husband pulled the two of them apart, but that wasn't going to stop Howard. Wanke ate her Thin Mints, and they needed to be avenged. So Howard started chasing her with a pair of scissors before eventually hitting her with a wooden board. The epic duel then moved to the kitchen, where Hersha bit Wanke's breast and hit her several more times.
Finally, Wanke's husband was able to restrain Howard until the police came and arrested her -- although we can only imagine what the hell he was doing during the whole scissors/board/boobie-chomping exchange (probably eating the Thin Mints). Howard was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, but as far as we know, cookie thief Wanke is still at large.
Man Prefers Prison to Arguing With Wife
We've never been to jail in Sicily, but we're going to assume prison life is the same there as it is anywhere: a terrifying, miserable experience full of stabbings and rape. And we assume that the Sicilians, like most people, do everything they can to avoid it.
To be fair, this is literally 100 percent of what we know about Sicily.
So you'd think house arrest would be like winning the lottery for Santo Gambino, a Sicilian construction worker who was arrested for dumping hazardous waste from his truck. The courts decided to ignore the fact that "Santo Gambino" might as well be "Racketeering McMafia" and sentenced him to house arrest instead of prison.
After a few days of confinement in his home, Gambino got into too many arguments with his wife. Apparently, his better half was not happy with his efforts to take care of their children, what with the toxic chemical dumping and his court-mandated staycation.
Eventually the strain was too much, and according to Italian police (and our friends at Google Translate), Gambino decided to "move away from home heading towards the police station where he reported to prefer prison to married life." That's right, the man violated his house arrest and immediately turned himself in because he didn't want to be at home with his wife anymore.
Much to Gambino's surprise, the police denied his request and sent him back home, which is admittedly the most hilarious act of law enforcement ever performed. Evidently they figured his wife was more than enough punishment for him.
You can visit Eddie's website here.
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For more questionable actions, check out 6 People Who Died In Order To Prove A (Retarded) Point and The 8 Least Impressive Guinness World Records.
And stop by Linkstorm to see the box of expired Twinkies Dan O'Brien risked his life to save.
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