The Debut of the Peculiar Friday Post
March 24th, 2006 by Megan Mahan
It’s my personal opinion that life’s much too short to spend it playing Mr. or Mz. Serious all the time. And no matter how much you love your job, come Friday, most of us are ready to unwind and enjoy the weekend.
It’s for this reason that I’m going to leave most of my Agent blog rhetoric for the first four days of the workweek, and post only about the peculiar on Fridays. The goal? I don’t really have one. Just to make you laugh, furrow your brow or ask aloud, “Um, what?”
So to get this thing off the ground, I’ve got two peculiar postings for you. Yes, two. What can I say, I’m excited. 
First up: Pop-Tarts are not Flame-retardant
So, I’m not entirely sure who’s repsonsible for this Pop-Tart experiment, but from the looks of things, it appears to be a couple of high school or college kids. Anyway, this new-wave scientist read (via Dave Barry’s legendary columns in the Miami Herald) that if you put a strawberry Pop-Tart in a toaster and rig it so it can’t pop up, there will be “quite an impressive fire”.
It seems trial one did not yield said results, but trial two saw total success.
The same scientist also carried out an experiment which involved microwaving Twinkies (I assume to see if they explode), but unfortunately there are no photos of this.
Man, I miss science class.
[Hat Tip:] RiskProf
Next up: Man Severed Own Fingers to Collect Insurance Money
Now this happened in December, but I hadn’t heard of this until today, so it’s news to me.
According to NYC’s Channel 7 news, an former Austrian “fingernail stylist” was charged with insurance fraud last December after he put his hands under a running train, severing a thumb and two fingers. All this just to collect on an insurance policy.
He told authorities that he lost his fingers in a bike accident two years earlier; but insurance officials became suspicious after noticing he’d recently taken out a $1.7 million insurance policy. And that he was $175,000 in debt.
If convicted, the 35-year old man could face 10 years in prison.
Aside from the fact that I’ve never heard of a “fingernail stylist”, this is maybe the strangest thing I’ve seen someone to do collect on a policy. I’m going to do my best to follow up on this one, although something tells me navigating through the Austrian news could pose a challenge.
Well, this concludes our first Peculiar Friday Post. And as always, if you have anything to share, just holler (via ‘comments’, of course).
Have a great weekend everyone.
