or at least take a long coffee break.
You know, a couple of years back we had this guy. A student. A student at the second-best university (of two!) in the area. And…how to say…not exactly the head of the class.
Now, students at this university, they have been known to get themselves into trouble, the way students do. They can do it particularly easily as this particular university is situated on top of a mountain which is home to both bears and cougars, as well as the mountainous terrain which comes from, yes, being on a mountain.
So, one night after the pub, he decides to save himself the two dollars and twenty-five cents a bus would cost (and the hour and a half it would take out of his life; those suburban buses are few and far between, and once you catch them they wander like Albion’s lost sheep, and at approximately the same pace) and hike down the mountain.
Cut to the darkest hours before dawn dawn…and Bubba here is stuck on a ledge, the last foothold for fifty or sixty feet, and he manages to flag down some help from the local homeless community or perhaps just passing nocturnal mountain bikers, and the mountain rescue team comes and rescues him.
Cut to a month or so later, on nearby Mount Seymour. It’s a ski hill, so Bubba has been enjoying a full and athletic day of mountainside activity, but apparently no challenge he has met today has proven sufficiently…challenging.
So Bubba goes off-trail.
Now, to my European friends, this won’t mean quite as much. I mean, you throw a rock in Switzerland, it’s damn well gonna hit somebody when it comes down, and that somebody is probably Bono ferchrissakes. In Canada, things are somewhat different. If you go down the wrong side of Seymour, you are in a deserted mountain valley and you could shoot off cannons without anybody hearing you.
Cut to several hours after dark, when Bubba is located by the trusty and intrepid Mountain Rescue team, on yet another cliff, toes frostbitten and weeping profusely. Not the toes, Bubba. The toes don’t start weeping until they thaw out, and that’s when it gets really gruesome.
Bubba lost a couple of toes, and several thousand dollars when he was charged for the cost of his own rescue. And he gave them to understand in minute detail just how outrageous was the expectation that he would be held financially responsible for the consequences of his going into the clearly marked Out of Bounds zone, which consequence was only levied because it was thought by the powers that be that Bubba should have surely learned his lesson the first time.
Cut to several weeks later. Yet another mountain cliff. Yet another Mountain Rescue team on yet another mountain rescue expedition, rescuing yet another Out of Bounds skier encounter…
Bubba.
Oh, they rescued him alrighty. But they were in no hurry to radio for that helicopter, they told the pilot they were in no hurry for him to get there, they were in no hurry to winch Bubba up, and they spent all the leisurely (6 or 7) hours this gave them in taunting Bubba with how stupid he was.
Even stupider: once they’d rescued him, he threatened to sue, and THAT was when the two provincial newspapers printed his full name and home town.
All of which is a longwinded way of suggesting that the 911 rescue teams in Worcester, Mass, are taking their responsibilities waaaaaaay too seriously. I tell ya, guys, a strategically-timed “coffee break” is all it takes to train the stupidity right out of a maroon like this one.
Jancura climbed inside the safe and his cousins locked him in it. They were able to get him out because the code to open it was left nearby.
Then he went in again.
This time, the wrong code was accidentally entered and the safe locked down, trapping the boy inside.
I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing the problem here. As long as you don’t let him out, he constitutes no threat to the quality of the gene pool.
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raincoaster 
I think natural selection is a beautiful thing. I say if Bubba does it again, he should be bear food.
I am trying to move to Canada. Sigh. I want to evacuate, and it seems so much better there.
Check it out, type ‘sympathisers of terror’ into google the hit I’m feeling lucky and see where you end up!
it puts me in mind of the advertisements for the new quasadillas (i think that’s how that’s spelled) where a couple of rescue workers are coming to the aid of some poor putz stuck in the snow somewhere and the rescue workers decide that they’re hungry too after the long trek. so they take a break to eat the quasadillas. at the last bit of the ad, they’re lounged out in the snow dining happily, and there’s an unhappy voice asking them what’s taking so long and they leisurely reply that they’ll be there in a minute :)
too bad this bubba guy has managed to live or is able to live with his gonads intact. the man sounds like a prime darwin award candidate.
Steven, not only you but your entire country appears to be in desperate need of an enema. If we have to use dynamite to move the block in your colon, that doesn’t make us terrorists.
naomi: I only wish I remembered Bubba’s full name. The papers here charge for a look at their archives, or I’d have put it in there. Got another Darwin-worthy story about mountain rescue coming up.
Okay, I laughed pretty hard on that one.
If I move/visit Canada and find a man bumbling along in the woods without a couple of toes, I’ll be sure not to inform the authorities.
Wonderful! We have to make sure the bears don’t starve, you know. They’ll be glad to know you’re thinking of them.
What a story! I’m with you on hoping Bubba contributes zero to the gene pool.
He’ll probably take his date out to a secluded mountain lookout…and promptly fall off.
I’m still reeling over the ‘second best’ university crack — that’s my alma mater you’re talking about!
I wonder what motivates the Bubbas of this world? It’s the Starbucks phenomenon — how many times have you seen someone double park, park in a loading zone, what-have-you, just to go to Starbucks? Dog owners who don’t leash their pets (or pick up after them)? Jackasses who go out of bounds? The rules don’t apply to them. They’re “special” — but why do they think so??
A mystery.
I figured to hear from you on this matter, what with you being related to Mr Second Best Himself (he was no match for George Vancouver!). It’s a fine institution, and many of my best friends have been institutionalized there.
There was a great article awhile back, I think in the Guardian, about why everybody thinks they’re special. And their parents think they’re even more special. In the Seventies and Eighties, you just wanted to hear your kid was normal, because the alternative meant they’d be running off to join the Manson Family or something. Now, people want to hear that their kids are abnormal. The UK set a mandate that 20% of elementary students would be promoted to classes for the gifted…but the teachers are having a problem finding that many gifted students. There simply aren’t that many, but they are finding that people are demanding that little Damian or Charlotte be in those classes. Then, when their classmates make them feel dumb in comparison, they’re threatening to sue.
They taunted Bubba?
Seriously?
That just cracks me up.
Yes, for HOURS. And the threatened to sue them for suffering, but when they went to take it to court they were naturally laughed at and given to understand that they had not yet BEGUN to suffer. That’s when the paper printed his name, and people started pointing at him in the street.
Oh god, we’ve got so MANY stupid criminals. I should tell you about Flamingo Man one day.
Wow with a name like Flamingo Man you just know it is good.
I’ll do a blog post later tonight. It’s quite a ta(i)le.