Friday, March 31, 2006

Send in the Clowns: the Saga Continues...

Our story continues... but first a quick review. Read the last post.

There, now where were we, ahhh yes... we were heading out to the nether regions of Nevada in search of a body.

So anyway, my cousins are known for their erm... alacrity in going places. In fact they flat haul ass. They had about a 10 minute head start on us, so I was making pretty good time because I didn't want them to leave us behind. Turns out there was no big hurry, because I came up behind a pickup and horse trailer and as I passed them, it was the county sheriff that we were meeting up there.

So we all showed up at Horse creek and waited for the Elko County Detective. While we were waiting, we pulled out the suicide letter and read it. She was rather despondant, and was all alone in life. She and her sister were adopted by a nice couple, but the couple had since passed away as had her sister. She was all alone and felt completely unloved and ugly. That's why she cut the picture out of her drivers license. In the letter she said that she had driven through this area a few years before and thought that it was the most beautiful place on earth and that's where she wanted to die. She really didn't know which state she was in, so if her body was found in Idaho she wanted to be cremated at a certain place. If she was in Utah, take her to this other place, and if she was in Nevada, take her to this place. Use as much of the $1000 that it took, and then give the rest to the boy scouts of that state. She went on to say that she was going off to kill herself and that we shouldn't even look for her, because no-one would miss an ugly old spinster like her anyway. I can't remember now, but I think she was in her mid 40's.

It was clear that she didn't have it all together, because she took the letter with her in the backpack and therefore we couldn't read her wishes that we shouldn't look for her. But I digress...

One of the hikers decided that he'd wait for the Detective, so the rest of us headed out to the crime scene. We all hiked for about a mile or so and came up to the body. But we hiked South instead of North. You see... even though she parked the car on the north side of the road, and left it facing North, she crossed back over the road and hiked to the south. The search team had never looked where we were going.

Once we got there it was very interesting to see how things had developed. She'd found a rather secluded spot under two junipers that had grown together, sat there for a while, then got on her knees put a Smith and Wesson stainless .38 to her left temple and pulled the trigger. She'd then fallen face first onto ground in the position that we were now looking at.

The interesting thing was how everything was right there. You could see how the whole thing had developed. The gun was lying next to her left hand, and it was all right there. Something had drug her right arm off and it was lying about 20 feet away, or at least what was left of it was, so we looked at it, and the rest of her too. Her clothes were in remarkably good shape. You wouldn't have imagined that they could have laid out there for 10 years and still looked like that. But she was under the boughs of the junipers so that she'd been sheltered from the weather.

There wasn't much flesh to speak of, just her hair and dried up scalp. The bones were white and visible but still held together by the dried sinews, and she had no odor. She just looked like any other pile of bones that we're used to seeing out there, only she was human and not some sort of critter.

It was about that time that the various detectives showed up. They took several pictures of the crime scene, and were all convinced that it was a suicide, so the books were closed. The local detectives had brought a pack mule to take her out. So we unfolded and unzipped the body bag, then opened it up and we all grabbed one of her 4 corners and lifted her up. She was remarkably stiff. Even though she'd lost a foot (it was still in her shoe), the rest of her was just like a board, so we kind of slipped her into the body bag feet first and then picked up all the rest of the various bones and pieces that we could find and threw them in there as well.

The body bag had loops on the four corners so four of us picked it up by them and headed toward the mule. Now animals can't talk, but he didn't have any trouble communicating with us, and the point was, "You're gonna put that thing on my back?!? I don't think so..." and he took off. We could clearly see that there wouldn't be a whole lot left of her or the bag if the mule packed her out, so it was decided that we'd just carry her.

We grabbed the bag by it's corners and headed off...

Next time: The voyage home and a few random observations. Don't miss it!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Send in the Clowns...

Reading DF's latest post about a traveling post-mortem display made me reminisce about a tale that I actually experienced, and then when I watched Bones last night, I knew I had to tell it to all of you.

I live fairly near to the three corners area of Utah, Idaho, and Nevada and have spent a lot of time in all three States as a result. So it's not uncommon for us to treat the entire area as home.

One morning my dad and I were downtown trying to get our pivot un-stuck, and didn't have a chain, so I ran down to my cousin's house to borrow one. When I got there, he loaned me the chain and then asked what I was doing that day. I, of course, pretty well had the whole day planned out and the first thing on the list was getting the pivot working. "Why don't you just drop everything else and come with us. I guarantee you, you'll not be doing anything today that can't wait, and this'll give you a story you can tell forever." "What are you doing?" I asked. "We're going up to retrieve a dead body that's been there for about 10 years."

Now I was intrigued, and coincidentally... everything on my schedule suddenly became less important.

I took the chain down to the pivot and we pulled it out of the mud, did a few other minor things with it, and then jumped into the pickup and headed for Nevada and the rendezvous.

About 10 years earlier, a car just showed up next to my cousin's ranch in Nevada. It had Utah plates and appeared to have some things in it, but it just sat there. After a couple of weeks... Let me explain a little bit more. You see, my cousin's ranch is about 50 miles from here on a dirt road that doesn't see through traffic but once in a blue moon. It's just about as far from anywhere you can be and not consider yourself lost. Seeing how it's so remote, they don't get a lot of visitors except during hunting season, so when this car showed up in the fall of the year, they chalked it up to some hunters or hikers or such.

Now after a couple of weeks, the car was still in the same place and there was no activity anywhere around it like a tent or campsite. It was at this point they decided to investigate further and looked in the car. There in the front was a letter stating that the occupant had gone to commit suicide, and that this car should be sold and the money given to the Salvation Army. My cousins, of course, called the cops. Since they were in Elko County, the Elko County Sheriff had to come out, but because my cousins have homes here in Idaho, the local Sheriff was also called out. Furthermore, because the car was from Utah, the Box Elder County Sheriff also made the trip. It was decided that the occupant had probably already killed themselves by now, or was a victim of foul play, so they pulled the information on the plates and found out that it had been registered to a woman in Salt Lake City. They put together a search party and spread out over the mountains to search for signs of the crime scene.

This is one of the interesting tidbits... the car was pulled off of the North side of the road and was facing North, so the search party only concentrated their efforts on the North side of the road. I don't think this was a conscious decision on anyone's part, it just happened that way. They naturally assumed that she would head off in the same direction that the car was pointed, and so that's where the search took place. They looked for two days and didn't find anything, so the search was called off, the case file left open, and the car was towed and sold with the money given to the Salvation Army.

Now we come back to the then present time. A retired couple from the local town enjoys hiking up in the back country. The fellow was pretty much raised with my cousin and developed a childhood friendship that lasted them both throughout their lives. Because of this, he liked to drive up and go hiking around my cousin's ranch.

It was on their last outing that he slightly outpaced his wife along a cow trail and while he was waiting for her to catch up, looked around and could see something white under a juniper tree in the distance. He thought it was a dead calf and walked down to see if it had an eartag or something so that he could tell my cousin about it. As he walked closer, he could start to see that it wasn't a calf, but it definately was a set of bones, only with clothes on. Then, under the same tree, he noticed a backpack.

Once his wife caught up to him, they couldn't help themselves but to take a look into the backpack, so they sneaked a quick peek. Of course it was like window peekin' so they hurriedly shut the backpack and walked back to their pickup. Like all good remorseful folk, they took the backpack with them.

Once they got back home, they went through the backpack with a bit more confidence and in it were her drivers license with the picture cut out, her suicide letter, an envelope with $1000 bucks in it for her cremation, and some other minor stuff. Again they felt remorseful, so they called up the neighbor, who is a detective on the police force and he came down and inspected it with them. They told him the whole story, and he went to work the next day and pulled the file and got ahold of the Elko County Sheriff where they worked out a time and place for their meeting the next day to go and retrieve the body.

And here's where I came in.

Don't miss our next episode!

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Am I Dreaming?

Turns out I was wrong. It's ok KTM, you can get back up. I know it's a shocker, but...

There was no free movie weekend on Showtime last weekend. It's THIS weekend. AND THEY'RE ADVERTISING IT RIGHT NOW!

I can't believe it. I actually find out about a free movie weekend before it occurs. I'm sooo giddy you could call me PinTA. :P

Unfortunately, last time Showtime had a free weekend, they showed the same thing 5 times. But here's hoping! And they did advertise Crash, so who knows...

Sunday, March 26, 2006

There Ain't No Cure For the Morning Show Blues.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I live in a slightly remote location. It's not quite the end of all civilization, but you can see it from here. Anyway...

I used to just wake up to the standard beep beep beep alarm, but that was before I got lazy, well... it was at least when I was back in college. Of course back then, I'd sleep until the very last minute and have to get up to do the morning routine before heading to class. These days, I have no set schedule, so I prefer to wake up to the radio. That way I can lay there and listen to the music for a while before braving the day. That is... I used to listen to the music.

A few weeks back, the only radio station I can pick up on the radio/alarm switched from their local morning show, which played mostly music, to a morning show out of Los Angeles which is mostly talking and "joking", and niether is very entertaining. Then there are the call in's who "just love your show!" What type of bad crack are these people smoking? *sigh*

I guess I'm old enough to remember the days when there was actually music on the radio in the morning, and the "morning show" consisted of the DJ's saying "Wake up sleepy heads, here's a little Nugent to get you out of bed." Followed by a little Metalica, Megadeath, Sabbath, or even the occassional Blackfoot, Big Country, or BTO just to get you over the sandman's hangover. But those days are past. Now it's a couple of guys talking about sex, or bad haircuts, or what their next giveaway is gonna require. "That's right Billy, stick your elbow in your ear and we'll give you a nice CD set of William Hung's greatest hits!"

I tell ya... I'm about to go back to the beeper.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Is it Live? Or is it Skinemax...

It happened again. Every time it's the same old story... they don't tell you until it's almost over. You're going through the usual motions and finally they tell you at the last minute. You know... if only they'd have revealed it when they should have, you'd have enjoyed the whole thing a bit more. Yep, it was a free HBO/Showtime/Cinemax weekend again.

It ran from Friday to Tuesday, and I only found out about it Monday afternoon. Buncha frellnicks...

So anyway, after I'd watched 24, I started flipping through the free channels and settled on something that must'a been terrifically good, I don't even remember what it was. But there is one thing I'm sure of, it was on Cinemax. How do I know this? Well, because at 10:00 when the movie was over, well... the Web of Desire began.

It was at this point that I remembered what they used to call this channel back in college, and they didn't name it Skinemax for nothing. Being poor college students we never did pay for any of that kinda channel, but there were some that did. I'd completely forgotten about the content until Monday.

So there I was, sitting here at the comp checking the usual blogs and bboards, when there it was, soft core porn on the TV. Being someone who can actually rub two brain cells together, it was an insult to my intellect to see what passed for content. My brain contemplated what it was watching and hearing and encouraged me to turn off this drivel. However... there was another part of my brain that kicked in at this point and advised that I shouldn't be quite so hasty. The conversation went something like this...

"Oh, my gad. That passes for dialogue? It's such an affront to any intelligence that it's hardly watchable."

"Duuuuuude, those are naked ladies!"

"Oh, come on man. The female form is a work of art that is to be appreciated and shouldn't be made into something to be oogled."

"Duude. NAKED. LADIES."

It was at this point that Ron White chimed in. You know the line, the one where he says, "Back me up on this guys, if you've seen one naked lady, you want to see the rest naked too." Damn that Ron White and his redneck wisdom...

So in the spirit of Herman's Head, I compromised. I watched until 10:30... :P

Monday, March 20, 2006

Can someone adjust the antennae? My picture window is a bit snowy...

I went to bed Friday night to a nice brown world, but woke up on Saturday to a white one. A white one that just kept getting whiter and whiter. Call me a racist if you want, but I'd rather not have quite so many white friends laying around this part of the world because that means deep snow, and deep snow means calfsicles.

What's a calfsicle you ask? Well, it's just like a popsicle only made out of baby calves. Yep, they freeze to death in this kinda stuff. So far I've lost 3 this weekend. Found one and tried to warm him up, but he died. Found another one and tried to warm him up in my folks back room, he died. And then yesterday I found another one, but he was already dead. But this last one looked to me like he'd had a little help. There was a lot of blood on his face, and I always suspect when I see that much blood that the crows pecked his eye out before he was dead. I can't prove it, but I've seen enough pecked eyes to know the difference. Frellin' crows...

Anyway, the sad part of it all is that it was a good storm. One of those Thomas Kincaid picture snows with the big flakes descending from the heavens without a breeze to be found. I love those kinda storms, they are really beautiful. Unfortunately, as you can tell, they make my occupation about 10 times harder than it otherwise would be.

My daily routine is probably somewhat different from most of yours. It consists of me getting up and eating breakfast, followed by a morning spent feeding my minions. The hay that we raise and put up on our own is in small bales. These are 16" x 18" and about 42" long and weigh around 90 pounds or so. The advantage to these bales is that they store the hay quite well, and can be lifted without the aid of mechanical devices. I use hay hooks and elbow grease. They have a disadvantage though, you have to load them and feed them by hand. That means that you have to handle each bale twice, every morning. Once when you load them, and once when you feed them, and if you have to feed a lot of them, you end up getting quite a workout. That's not a bad thing, really, because it helps me keep my girlish figure. But the older you get, the harder it becomes and so on.

The hay we buy is in what we call big bales or ton bales. They measure 4' x 4' x 8' and can weigh up to a ton, but usually come in around 1800 lbs. The advantage to these is that you have to load them with a tractor or some such mechanical device and so you only handle them by hand once. They even make automatic feeders for these that you pull behind a tractor, and there's not much physical effort at all. Unfortunately these machines can cost around $30,000 without the tractor, and a pitchfork costs less than $10. Guess which one I use? The main disadvantage of big bales is that they are hard to lift with a pair of hay hooks, and when your diesel gels up, or your tractor won't start, you're kinda screwed. They also give your shoulders a helluva workout on that pitchfork. But such is life...

We had to buy a couple hundred ton of hay this year, so recently we've been feeding mostly big bales. When the weather was nice, I'd get done feeding around 11:00 a.m. and then could spend my day doing other things like building a stove. On snowy days though, I basically spend the day feeding, strawing, and checking on the cattle so that the little calves will have a warmer, drier place to lay down. Good for them, tougher on me. It means a lot of extra work, and even then, you still get a few calfsicles.

But on the bright side, it's about 40 here today, with more rain and snow in the forecast. Oh joy...

Sunday, March 12, 2006

One's in the Stove...

A couple years back, we finished off a structure that was around here when we bought the place and made it into a shop. It turned out pretty nice, and since that time, we've been slowly moving things in and making it functional.

There has been one remaining finishing touch though, that is how to heat the building. The choices are wide and varied, and run the gamut from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. Now being... what's the term... ah yes, broke, I started looking for the least expensive method. I was leaning toward a propane heater, but then gas prices went through the roof, and I reconsidered. The next option looked like electric, but the power company just raised their rates again, and that too became less appealing.

That left a wood burning stove as the last of the inexpensive options. But most stoves can be quite costly, and you have to feed 'em. So I was at an impass.

I happened to be visiting with a friend of mine who told me that his cousin made a wood stove out of a 55 gallon drum and that it did a great job of heating, and suggested I go online and find some plans. It was at this point that I decided that we'd found a winner, so I went online looking for the plans.

Strangely enough, there aren't that many out there, but I did find one site that said to forget the drum and use an old water heater. I was intrigued, and their argument made sense. So I downloaded the plans, and my buddy and I drove out to the junk pile because we remembered seeing a couple of old water heaters laying out there.

There were a couple of old heaters, but as we were browsing the junk hill, we saw a big piece of pipe. The pipe looked like it was an old compression coupler from who knows where, but it was about 20 inches inside diameter and 38 inches long with threaded flanges already welded on the ends. To top it all off, it was about 3/8" steel. The perfect fit for my little project.

The only flaw to my plan, was building a door for the front of it. The next morning at breakfast I told my dad what the story was, and he took me out into the shed and showed me a box that he'd had for about 25 years lying on a shelf. In the box was a kit to convert a 55 gallon drum into a wood stove. It had legs, a door, and a crown for the stovepipe. It was perfect. Sooooooo...

How to build a stove in 6 easy steps:

Step 1. Get all the pieces you need, by hook, crook, scavenging, etc. You will need some type of metal cylinder, and an assortment of metal to make the legs, top, ends, and smokestack.

Step 2. Figure out what you want the stove to look like. Since my cylinder already had a hole in the top of it, I decided to put a flat piece of metal the whole length of the cylinder to give me a flat surface on the top, and to put the stovepipe on the end. (If you're actually going to do this, a word of advice-- The plans I downloaded called for a 6" O.D. (outside diameter) pipe for the smokestack. The stove pipe is to fit into it. This turns out to be an error. Your standard 6" single wall stovepipe is actually 6" O.D. That means that your smokestack and stovepipe will be the exact same diameter and will not fit inside one another. Your smokestack needs to be 6" I.D. (inside diameter) pipe. Learn from my mistake.) Once I figured out what I needed to do, I cut the flat plate, welded the smokestack into it, and cut the ends to size and drilled the holes to bolt them on. Here, take a look.

Step 3. Finish welding the smokestack and flat plate onto the cylinder, then turn the entire stove over and assemble your legs and weld them onto your cylinder. Take special care to make sure that the legs and your flat plate will sit perfectly parallell to each other. If you don't, your stove will rock back and forth and will be unstable, or else anything you put on the top of the stove will slide off.

Step 4. Turn the cylinder right-side up, and put the back on it. At this point, your stove should start to take shape.

Step 5. Put the front on the stove, mark out where the door should go, and install the door. Make sure that your door frame is also exactly parallell to the top plate and legs. If it's out of parallell one direction or the other, the door will either swing open or closed when you don't want it to. After you get the door bolted on, you should be able to open the door and cut out the opening in the front plate where you will load the wood. Now it's really looking like a wood stove.

Step 6. Now it's time to figure out where you want to put it in the building. Once you get it in place, you need to plum it in, put up any necessary firewalls behind it, add a little flat black hi-temp paint, and voila!

Now all you've got to do is to pack copious amounts of wood into the hungry beast and enjoy the warmth and smell of the fire.

Now where did I put those marshmallows...

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

What's in a Name.

Well... enough of the warm and fuzzy posts. I'm sure you're all sick of them by now. I mean, how many times can you feel all warm inside without needing a break? Don't worry, though. I'm not giving them up altogether, just for now.

Ok... enough of the pleasantries, on with the tale.

A few years ago, I happened to be up in Boise trying to get help from a friend on a legal matter. He's an interesting fellow, and everytime I dropped by his house/office, I always met a new and curious assortment of people. This time was no different.

I quickly got ousted from his computer room for talking, so I went out into the living room to finish the conversation I was having. There was a man there (I'll call him B) that I'd never met before, and I was introduced to him. He was a very pleasant, older gentleman, and I liked him right off. He asked about my troubles, and I told him why I was there. Now when I explain matters such as this, I try to give just the facts and be as clinical as I can so as not to bias the listener. After all, I don't want "yes men", I want straight up answers on whether I'm in the right or not. He quickly assessed the situation and assured me that we were in the right, and that I should prevail.

After that, I was curious about him, so I asked about his life and for the next 6 hours, I learned all about it. He had a very curious name, one that I'd never heard before, but what the hey... there are a lot of names that I've never heard before I actually do. But I semi-digress. He'd led a fascinating life.

He was actually born and raised about 50 miles from where I live. Then he went on to various places, got married to the love of his life, raised a family, and wound up in Lodi, California where he spent some time as a State patrolman, and finally wound up running a convenience/liquor store. To make a long story short, he decided to fight the State of Califoria on making him collect sales tax without compensating him for it, thereby being involuntary servitude, and he beat them. It was at this time that he was advised to leave the country by an attorney friend of his. The attorney said that the State was going to get even by hook or crook, and that he'd highly suggest he leave not just the State, but the Country. So off B went. He called his silent partner and said, "Congratulations, you just bought me out", went home and got his wife, packed the car and moved to Canada.

It was about this time that he inquired if I would answer a couple of questions he had. I, of course, agreed if they weren't too intrusive. He assured me they weren't too bad, and asked me to print my name and birthdate. While I watched, he assigned a numerical value to each of the letters of my name, summed them up, raised his eyebrows, and said, "Thank you very much. That explains a lot to me." He then folded the paper, put it into his shirt pocket, and went on with some story.

"Whoa, now. I can't let you get away with that." I said. "You've got to explain what you just did, and how that tells you anything."

"Oh. Ok. You're schizophrenic. Did you know that? You've got 3 distinct personalities, but don't feel bad. I had 7." he replied, and then went on to tell me what the combinations of numbers told him. He said at it's very essence, your name is who you are. It defines your personality and everything that happens in your life, your experiences, desires, and outcomes. Do you ever wonder why you are the way you are? Why can't you do this or that like other people? Are you a recluse? Do you have trouble with self confidence? Why are you organized and others not? Why are others artistic and you can't draw a straight line? Why are you flypaper for freaks? *coughKTMcough* It's all in your name he explained. I was intrigued, but quite sceptical. He then proceeded to tell me everything about me, my personality, good character traits (strengths), and bad ones (weaknesses). You know the freaky thing? He wasn't wrong. ABOUT ANYTHING! He warned me that he was going to tell me things that no-one knew exept me, and then proceeded to do it. All this after a mere 3 hours of conversation in which he told me about himself for about 2 1/2 of them. It was all in the name.

While he was in Canada, he became introduced to what is called the Kabalarian Philosophy, and he was so fascinated by it, he sold the lodge he had bought and moved down to their headquarters and studied it for years. His original name was quite unbalanced and limiting, so he changed it to the one that he had when I met him. He told me this was such a miraculous change that he couldn't even describe it to me. He just wished he had done it several decades earlier.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with him explaining to me the basics of the philosophy, and also some of the little known things which were very intriguing to me as well. But as the clock struck 6 that Friday evening and we parted company, I was left with a nagging... no... I should say, overpowering desire to hit the website that he'd given me, which I did on Saturday after getting back home. By Sunday eve, I had ordered their course and have since gone through it.

I saw him about 3 or 4 more times after that, but then he left Boise, and our paths have never crossed since. I often think about him, and the impact that chance meeting had on my life, and I'd love to get together again now and visit. But I don't suspect we'll ever cross paths again, and the loss is indeed mine.

I still don't subscribe to all of their teachings, but it has been a very useful tool to me in my dealings with others since that time. It's really a very valuable resource for dealing with you online folk. You see... where we can't see each other, it can be very difficult to read your reactions, and that makes it difficult to avoid uncomfortable situations. Those of you whose names I've gleaned over time, I can usually avoid pushing the "serious" buttons of. Those that I don't know the names of, I can and have gone too far with on occasion. It's nothing intentional on my part, but if I don't know where the land mines are, I can't avoid them.

So... if by chance I happen to ask your name, now you'll know the reasons why.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Say Uncle

Since PinTA claims she doesn't have a weak stomach, I guess I'll go ahead and tell you the story about another Uncle of mine.

He used to work in Alaska and so he'd have to fly back and forth quite regularly from one place to the next. There weren't an over abundance of airlines or even airline crews, so he quickly got to know the flight attendants.

One day, about midflight, he motioned to the flight attendant to come back to where he was sitting. When she got there, he told her, "You know... I think I'm gonna need one of those airsick bags." "Oh! Be right back." and she quickly brought him one sensing the urgency of the matter. Well, while she was busy with the other passengers, he pulled one of those pop top, single serving, cans of Dinty Moore beef stew from his pocket, and proceeded to pour it into the airsick bag.

After a few minutes, the stewardess came back and asked if he was finished with the bag. "I think so." my Uncle replied, "No. Wait just a sec." and then he opened up the bag and looked at the contents. "Whoa. There's still some pretty good chunks in there." he said and reached into the bag and plucked out a chunk of beef and ate it. It was at this point he told me that the stewardess looked like she needed an airsick bag of her own, leaving my Uncle busting up with laughter. So he ended up telling her what he'd done, and she chuckled too. Although I'm almost certain that her chuckle was out of politeness...

Not enough you say? Ok... I guess I can tell you the one about the old guy that used to own the hardware store in town.

Every morning he'd come into the coffee shop and get a cup of coffee. But when he did, most everyone else would clear out. They liked the guy well enough, mind you, but once he got his coffee, he'd go through the same routine every day, and few if any could stand to watch the floor show.

You see... he'd get his cup of coffee, spit his dentures out and with a toothpick proceed to clean the shit off of the dentures from the previous day while dunking them into his coffee. Once he was through cleaning the falsies, he'd put them back in his mouth and then... yup. You guessed it.

He'd drink the coffee.

In the End, There's Really No Difference.

As I was reading g_s' latest post I couldn't help but think of a story that involved my Uncle.

He was in the hospital for something or other, and with breakfast they gave him a glass of apple juice. Coincidentally, he also was to give them a urine sample after breakfast.

Now my Uncle doesn't really like apple juice, so he looked at the glass of juice, and then at the urine sample cup. A smile started over his face at this point and he poured the apple juice into the sample cup.

When the nurse came in to take his plate and get the sample, he handed her the "sample". She looked at it and said, "Boy that's awfully cloudy." To which my Uncle replied, "Let me see." and she handed him the cup. "Wow, you're right. That is awfully cloudy, maybe we oughta run that through again." and quickly he tips the cup back and drinks all of the contents.

With a shriek, the nurse cries "Ahhh!" and lunges for the cup, but he's already chugged it, and then my Uncle busts out laughing and finally tells her what he'd done. She was relieved and he had a great story to tell all of us.

I would tell you the one about another Uncle and a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, but PinTA has a weak stomach, and I doubt she could take it... ;)