The Federal Reserve offers a free service. If you have cash that has been burned, torn, or otherwise destroyed, they will help you verify and replace that money. They once received a shotgun in which a man had hidden some money, but forgot and fired the gun. In another case, a farmer sent his cow’s stomach to them, all stuffed with money.
Category: Mistakes
Springing Ahead
Springing ahead can be dangerous. The number of people who suffer strokes during the two days following moving the clock ahead is 8 percent higher.
Blind Drunk
A police officer stopped a car in Jackson, Mississippi because the car was weaving. The driver was blind and was being guided by a passenger who was drunk.
Zebra Escape
In 2010, a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus animal trainer lost control of a zebra who escaped and ran confused and frenzied among freeway traffic in downtown Atlanta, Georgia for approximately forty minutes. The zebra was captured and returned to the circus, unharmed except for some minor cuts.
This is a random zebra, not the same one.
Getting Her Licence
A woman in England had to take her driving test 41 times before she was awarded a license to drive. It sounds to me like the only time she got to practice was when she was taking her test. That’s one way to get driving lessons without paying for them. I’d say the examiner got taken for a ride.
See the worst of everything: The Worst
Frank’s Drive Home
Frank hit some particularly bumpy railroad tracks 26 miles outside of his home in New York City at three in the morning. This broke an engine mount. Sometimes when an engine mount breaks, the car still works, but the shift mechanism is out of whack. That’s what happened with Frank’s car. His shifter would only let him shift into reverse. So, he started driving backward. He went more than 25 miles in reverse before a police officer stopped him. He was three blocks from home.
W. C. Fields and Savings Accounts
W.C. Fields used to open savings accounts everywhere he went. He put over one million dollars in 700 different banks. He couldn’t remember where many of his accounts were.
Prince of Wales and Niagara Falls
When the Prince of Wales visited Niagara Falls, he tried to talk people into letting him ride across the falls on a high wire in a wheelbarrow. Evidently the local authorities refused to let him do it.
Ben Franklin’s Failed Architecture
When plans were required for a new house of government, Ben Franklin was given a crack at the architect’s job, but his design was rejected. It was just too offbeat. He had planned to hook all the seats in the meeting room to the fireplace chimney. The bottoms of the seats would have many small holes. The draft from the chimney would create a slight suction at these holes in the seats, carrying away what he called “personal odors.”
But, one has to try things, right? Look how well his other ideas worked out!
See the worst of everything: The Worst
The Real Franklin Stove
The Franklin stove as we know it today is a fireplace with cast iron doors. This is not the woodstove that Ben invented. His version has disappeared from modern times. It was an airtight, which is more efficient than most of the stoves used at that time. But, his invention was so complex and awkward to light that it never gained much favor in American homes.
It looked somewhat like an egg on a pedestal. The air came in through vents in the top of the egg, passed downward through the wood fire, and was sucked out the bottom, which was connected to the chimney through pipes running under the floor. This design caused almost total combustion of the wood, which most stoves cannot do, and the pipes under the floor warmed the floor, which was pleasant and efficient. The problem was that the system had to be warmed gradually in order to get the necessary draft or suction sufficient to avoid smoking up the whole house.
Ben claimed that the servants were too stupid to manage it. He was reluctant to say that maybe his design was just too cumbersome.
This is not a true Franklin Stove
Women Failing In Business
One out of every four women fail in business. Four of every five men fail in business.
Albert Einstein’s Mistake
One time Albert Einstein was jotting down some notes about his thoughts while attending a banquet. Everyone rose in a standing ovation and they were applauding, so Dr. Einstein rose and clapped his hands too. He didn’t realize the ovation was for him.
Before The First Atomic Bomb
Worst Assumption Ever
Before testing the first atomic bomb, some of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project did their best to calculate what might happen. They estimated there was a three percent chance the bomb would set the entire world’s atmosphere on fire, instantly killing us all. They went ahead and tested the bomb.
See the worst of everything: The Worst
King Henry VIII
Worst Diet
King Henry VIII of England, long known for his many wives and culinary gluttony, died at age 56, probably from scurvy, a condition of dietary deficiency. It was fashionable in his time for wealthy people to eat mostly meat, and very few vegetables, because ‘vegetables were for peasants.’
See the worst of everything: The Worst
Skyscraper Swimming Pool
If you discover something that needs attention, speak up!
In Rochester New York, a new skyscraper was built for Xerox Corporation. Upon completion, it was time to fill the fourth floor executive swimming pool. But a janitor held up progress. He had a feeling that the weight of the water was too much for the building to support. The architects checked, and sure enough, they hadn’t accounted for the water. If he had opened the valve to fill the pool as instructed, the building would have come crashing down. The fourth floor now has an executive ice skating rink.
Selling Papayas on Hawaii
Because Jared lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, he had few options for earning a living. He found an orchard that would sell him a pickup truck full of too-ripe papayas for $25. He figured most of these were still quite edible, and so he could sell them to tourists near the hotels. He bought a load, made a sign and parked his truck. The first day, he made $100 or so, and he was delighted with his new business idea. The second day, all the papayas were becoming too ripe and he only made $50. The third day, it was obvious he couldn’t sell any more papayas, even though his truck was still almost entirely full. He tried to bury them in his yard, but after an hour of digging, he had only a small hole. He took them to the dump, but they were not accepting truckloads of produce. They rotted in the back of his truck. Because of the stench, the truck was no longer drivable. I don’t know how the story ended, but I’m sure Jared’s truck was never completely clean and stink-free again.
Harry and David’s
The lesson here is don’t assuming something is finished until you’ve tested it thoroughly:
Right before Christmas, Harry and David’s, the big mail-order company, put a new computer system into service. It had bugs. Hundreds of orders were mixed up. One woman who ordered a large turkey received one large turkey every day for a month. Soon after they started arriving, she called the company, and they told her that they were overwhelmed, so she could just keep the turkeys. At first this was great, but after she ran out of freezer space, and after everyone she know got free turkeys, they kept coming. She had to carry them to the trash.
The Liberty Bell
Because the Americans felt unqualified to cast a bell so large, the Liberty Bell was made in England and shipped to America. It arrived in 1752. It cracked the very first time it was rung. This was the only bell made by the Whitechapel Foundry of London that ever cracked in the 400 years they had been making them.
The colonists melted it down and tried to recast it themselves, but it did not sound good when finished. They tried again, and then Continue reading The Liberty Bell
