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1. OPENING JARS - She's struggling. You take it from her hands, open it effortlessly and pretend she loosened it for you. She didn't. Jars are men's work.

2. KICKING A FOOTY AGAINST A GARAGE DOOR - Clang-g-g-g-g-g-! Stick that Becks, I kick so hard I set off car alarms.

3. SHARPENING A PENCIL WITH A STANLEY KNIFE - Blunt, is it? Hand it here love. No, I don't need a sharpener, I've got a knife thanks!

4. DRINKING UP - Specifically, rising from the table, slinging your coat on
and downing two thirds of a pint in one fluid movement. Then nodding
towards the door, saying, "Let's go" and striding out while everyone else
struggles to catch up with you. You're hard.

5. HAVING A THIN BIT OF WOOD - in the shed, solely to stir paint with.

6. HAVING A HANGOVER AND THICK STUBBLE - When birds have been partying they just whinge. You on the other hand have physical evidence of your
hardness, sprouting from your face. "Big night?" Grr, what does it look
like.

7. NODDING AT COPPERS - A moment's eye contact is all it takes for you to
share the unspoken bond. "We've not seen eye to eye in the past",it says,
"but someone's got to keep the little scrotes in line".

8. USING POWER TOOLS - Slightly more powerful than you need or can safely
handle. Pneumatic drilling while smoking a fag? Superb.


9. ARRIVING IN A PUB LATE - And everyone cheers you. It doesn't mean
you're popular, it just means your mates are pissed.
However, the rest of the pub doesn't know that.

10. NOT WATCHING YOUR WEIGHT - Fat is a feminist issue, apparently.
Brilliant. Pass the pork scratchings.

11. CARVING THE ROAST - And saying "are you a leg or breast man?"
to the blokes and "do you want stuffing?" to the women.
Congratulations, you are now your dad.

12. WINKING - Turns women to putty. Doesn't it? Of course it does.

13. KNOWING ABOUT DIY - Straight into Woodies for an angle grinder to cut bricks. Better get some more extension cord and plugs too.

14. PHONE CALLS THAT LAST LESS THAN A MINUTE - Unlike birds, we get
straight to the point. "Alright? Yep. Drink? Avoca? Avoca it is then.
15 minutes, grand."

15. PARALLEL PARKING - Bosh, straight in. First time. Can Schumacher do
that? No, because his cars got no reverse gear which, technically, makes
you the world's best driver.

16. HAVING EARNED THAT PINT - Since the dawn of time, men have toiled in
the fields in blistering heat. Why? So when it's over we can stand there in
silence, surveying our work with one hand resting on your hip while the other nurses a foaming jug of ale. Aaaah.

17. KNOWING WHICH SCREWDRIVER IS WHICH - "A Phillips? For that?"

18. HAVING SOMETHING PROPERLY WRONG WITH YOU - Especially if you didn't make a fuss. "Why was I off?, oh nothing much, just a few cracked ribs".

19. HAVING CLOTHES SPECIFICALLY FOR DIRTY WORK - Whether it's overalls or an old paint-splattered t-shirt nothing says "fuck getting someone in, I'll do it" like 'work' clothes.

(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works."

Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration I, and filled the 4' diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun. He figured he would pop a few of the many balloons when it was time to descend.

Larry's plan was to sever the anchor and lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn't work out quite as Larry planned.

When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead, he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 42 helium balloons holding 33 cubic feet of helium each. He didn't level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.

At that height he felt he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.

Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes. Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

The Federal Aviation Administration was not amused. Safety Inspector Neal Savoy said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed."

DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2006
Submitted by: Ed Greany, Douglas Walker, Walter Hecht
Reference: UPI, Stabbed with a Wedge of Cheese by Charles Downey