7 People Who Risked It All to Achieve (Very Stupid) Goals

6 To Get Rid of a Wart, a Man Blows His Finger Off With a Shotgun

For Yorkshire resident Sean Murphy, the painful wart on his finger was a source of frequent irritation and distraction, like being perpetually attached to a wacky sitcom neighbor. He tried everything he could think of to get rid of it, but after five years the wart was still there, constantly barging in uninvited and trying a new get-rich-quick scheme every week. Clearly it was time to get out the shotgun.

That's right: After "no amount of creams, ointments or doctors' appointments" helped, Murphy decided it was time to take things to another level. He just so happened to have run across a 12-gauge Beretta shotgun that had been responsibly disposed of underneath a hedge, and Murphy had decided to keep it rather than alert the authorities because, hey, free shotgun. So, Murphy sat down with his new boomstick and, after a lot of careful deliberation, drank a whole shitload of beer. Then, after some much less careful deliberation, he took aim and blew the wart into oblivion ... along with the finger it was attached to.

Murphy was apparently surprised to lose his entire finger in the incident, and blamed the result on the gun's recoil. You know, instead of the copious amounts of alcohol in his system, or the fact that trying to shoot a wart off of a finger with a 12-gauge shotgun is like trying to ... actually, there is no comparison we can come up with crazier than this. In fact, from now on when trying to demonstrate overkill, we'll use the phrase "Like trying to remove a wart with a shotgun."

The consequences didn't end there, though. Since the British legal system doesn't accept "finders keepers" as a defense against illegal possession of a firearm, Murphy found himself facing up to 15 years in prison. Fortunately, his lawyer was able to argue the sentence down to a fine and community service, which Murphy presumably will not be fulfilling by performing charity banjo recitals.

But if you think that losing his finger would get Sean Murphy down, you don't know Sean Murphy. According to him: "The best thing is that the wart has gone. It was giving me a lot of trouble." And in his defense, here's what his finger looked like before he decided to vaporize it:

See, that's covering, like, 3 percent of his finger there.

5 Woman Goes into Labor in the Middle of a Skyrim Presentation, Stays to Watch

The birth of a child is one of the most magical and important events in any person's life. For most people, that is. Other people apparently just cross their legs and squeeze real tight so they can sit and watch video games.

Such is the case of Stevi and her fiance, Chaz, who attended QuakeCon (a video game convention) while Stevi was uber pregnant. But the baby wasn't due for almost another whole month, and Stevi just loved video games so friggin' much, so what could it hurt, right?

Right. So Stevi and Chaz settled in to watch a demo for the as-yet-unreleased Skyrim (you may have heard of it -- it was kind of a big deal), and when the Frost Dragon appeared onscreen, Stevi got so excited that she felt a contraction. At first she thought nothing of it, seeing as the kid wasn't due yet and it might have just been false labor, but when the contractions continued, there was no longer any question -- it was time for a tiny new game nerd to enter the world.

Time to drop everything and hightail it to the hospital! Right? Not exactly. You see, Stevi and Chaz are hardcore gamers ... so hardcore that they decided they'd stick it out for the entire half-hour presentation. Contraction after contraction, the pair toughed it out in order to get an eyeful of Tamriel, the Dark Brotherhood and the Bosmer, which, if you've never heard of them, let us inform you, are totally worth ignoring the birth of your own child for.

Wait, no. No, they're not. But as Chaz explained later, they "stayed for the rest of the demo because is a trooper and loves Skyrim." Once the presentation finished, Stevi and Chaz finally decided to get their asses to the hospital, where Stevi gave birth to a healthy baby girl, whom she (no shit) named Atari Lynn.

Our advice to little Atari: Just open with this story whenever you meet someone new -- we find it's easiest get those pity looks out of the way right off the bat.

4 Teen Sells a Kidney for an iPad

At some point in his life, every man has seen an awesome toy like, say, a brand new Ferrari, and facetiously said something like, "Oh yeah, I'd give my right nut to have one of those!" Well, as far as we know, nobody's actually gone out and chopped off half their manhood for a new sports car, but there's one kid who did something arguably even more idiotic for something only marginally less likely to increase his chances with the opposite sex.

We're referring to a teenager from China, known only by his last name, Zheng, who really wanted an iPad 2. The only problem was, he was lacking the cash to buy one, being both a teenager and in China. So, like most teenagers in need, he turned to the best source of help he knew: the Internet. After negotiations with Nigeria's finest royalty presumably fell flat, Zheng came across an advertisement that promised to pay handsomely for something of his that he really wouldn't miss. Just, you know, a goddamn kidney.

Now, this is the part where most of us would get nightmarish visions of waking up in a motel room bathtub filled with ice, with half a day missing and a nice new jagged scar for our troubles. But not our friend Zheng, oh no: This teen took one look at that ad and he signed himself right up for major surgery. So that he could get an iPad.

If you're thinking this is where Zheng ran into a roadblock because he needed something like, oh, we don't know, maybe "parental consent" or perhaps "a psychological evaluation" in order to sell off a major organ, you're wrong. You see, in China, selling your organs is apparently so easy, a child can do it. So Zheng went on down to the hospital and sold his kidney, just like that, and returned home with his shiny new iPad (and a laptop to boot), which immediately made his mom suspicious.

When she asked the boy where he'd gotten the money for the loot, Zheng instantly fessed up. The fact that this was also about the time he started feeling pain from complications from the major freaking surgery he had just put himself through probably was another reason for the quick confession.

Zheng's mom was understandably livid, but when she demanded restitution from the hospital -- preferably in kidney form -- she was denied. The kidney thief didn't work for them. It turns out the hospital had rented out their operating room to a shady private individual because, really, why not? The police were also of no help, and it looks like Zheng now has to live with his choice for the rest of his life. But hey, on the upside -- Angry Birds!

3 Man Chooses Half a Beer Over Freedom

Our story begins when Florida man John Robin Whittle stopped by his local bar one day and ordered a beer. But before finishing his drink, he decided to take care of something else he had on his to-do list that day: robbing a freaking bank. So Whittle excused himself, left the bar and his half-finished beer and went to get his federal offense on.

Whittle calmly walked around the corner to a nearby Wells-Fargo and cleaned the place out. So then it was time to hightail it out of there, right? This is when you jump into your carefully parked getaway car and haul ass straight to Mexico. But Whittle couldn't do that. He had unfinished business that took priority over his own freedom.

And when we say "unfinished business," you can replace the second word with "beer." Whittle remembered the fact that he had left half of a beer sitting at the bar, and went back to finish it.

The police took all of 10 minutes to find Whittle at the bar, realize that he fit eyewitness descriptions of the perp and notice that he was lugging around huge sacks with dollar signs printed on them. Whittle's response as to why he went back to the bar when he could have at least given it the old college try and wound up on World's Wildest Police Chases was that he "wouldn't let a good beer go to waste."

We hope it was at least one of those fancy microbrews and not, like, a Milwaukee's Best or something.

2 Man Fakes His Own Kidnapping for a Hundred Bucks

Quick! You need a hundred bucks, right now. What do you do? Well, let's see ... You could beg a family member to loan you the dough until they cave in. Or pawn your TV. Or maybe you could fake your own kidnapping, pretend to be the kidnapper and demand a $100 ransom from your family.

The mastermind behind this fake kidnapping is a South Carolina man named Christopher Hutto. You see, Hutto came up with the idea to con his own mother by sending her texts -- from his own phone, no less -- that said her son had been badly beaten and his body dumped in the woods. The texts then demanded the princely sum of $100 to reveal the location of the body.

Hutto's mother immediately reacted as any loving parent would when confronted with the very real possibility of losing their child: by negotiating the ransom from $100 down to $60.

Hutto, who had presumably seen his mother participate in many a yard sale price negotiation over the years and knew he was outclassed, agreed to the amount and gave her a location where she could drop off the loot. But Dr. Fake Kidnapper, Ph.D., realized that his so carefully thought-out plan had gone awry when he showed up at the scene to pick up his measly 60 bucks and found the police there waiting. Hutto took off, but was apparently almost as good at running as he was at masterminding crime, because he was caught after a brief foot chase.

The police theorize that Hutto wanted to score some drugs with his illicit proceeds. Which sounds strange, because it seems to us that you'd have to already be tripping balls the size of Jupiter to come up with that plan in the first place.

1 Parents Leave a Baby in the Trunk of Their Car to Attend a Concert

In this article's predecessor, we talked about Guita Sazan Silverstein, the woman who locked her son in a hot car and then refused to allow authorities to bust him out because she didn't want her car to suffer a broken window. Well, the story we're about to tell you makes Silverstein look like a regular Carol Brady.

Young German parents Annika and Daniel were planning to attend a concert, but apparently neither of them were familiar with the admittedly complex concept of "finding a damn baby sitter." And so, recognizing their parental responsibilities but not wanting the tickets to go to waste, the married couple decided to each see a separate half of the concert so that 8-month-old Anton would be under the constant supervision of a loving parent. Then they thought "Naaahhh" and locked him in the trunk of their car instead.

Now, lest you think that Anton's parents didn't care about their son's well-being, it's important to note that to ensure his safety, they went to such drastic measures as "parking in the shade" and "leaving the window open a little." Then, satisfied that their baby boy's health was secure inside a trunk that was reportedly filled with soiled diapers, uneaten food and dirty laundry (to keep him well-fed and to cushion him against bumps and scrapes, surely), Annika and Daniel skipped away hand-in-hand to see the show.

Thankfully, some people passing by heard the baby crying and notified the police, who then smashed into the car to rescue Anton and sent him to the hospital. When an announcer at the concert asked the parents to identify themselves, Annika and Daniel refused to come forward, presumably pointing at the people beside them while trying to look all innocent. It's almost as if they weren't entirely confident in their decision to lock a baby in a car trunk for the duration of a concert that was to last, uh, seven goddamned hours.

You can hire Eddie to write something for you by contacting him at firebugfilms@hotmail.com. You can visit his website here, and you can watch his newest short film here.

For more people who don't have their head screwed on straight, check out The 7 Most Ridiculous Cases of Misplaced Priorities. Or discover the people who screwed their heads back on in 6 People Who Turned a Life of Crime Into Legitimate Careers.

And stop by LinkSTORM because it's where everyone hangs out on Friday.

And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.

Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up for our writers workshop! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infographic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!