By: David Matthews
Bang for your buck
Today’s world is a very different place. For example, 100 columns ago when I bought a used car, it came with a free keychain and a handshake. Today when you buy a car at Max Motors in Butler, Mo., they’ll throw in a free handgun.
Owner Mark Muller ran the promotion through May and said that sales quadrupled during that time. Customers had the choice between a gun and a $250 gas card, but except for “one guy from Canada and one old guy,” everyone chose the gun.
Muller told the BBC that the promotion was actually inspired by none other than Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
“[Obama] said all those people in the Midwest, you’ve got to have compassion for them because they’re clinging to their guns and their Bibles,” Muller explained. “I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns.”
So what sort of gun can you get for $250? Muller recommends the Kel-Tec.380, which he describes as “a nice little handgun that fits in your pocket.”
The kids are not all right
The kids sure haven’t gotten any smarter. One hundred columns ago, you’d have to be at least 14 years old to be considered one of the youngest Arkansans to be charged with drunk driving.
Now you don’t even have to be a teenager.
The bar was lowered in May when a 12-year-old Johnson County boy had a 10-year-old friend over to spend the night. Once the parents were asleep, the boys found some beer and started making plans.
Even though it was 2 a.m., the pair decided to borrow the 12-year-old’s stepfather’s company-owned pickup truck and somehow try to locate a girl they had met—wait for it—at a rodeo.
They made it about 10 miles before the 12-year-old driver lost control of the truck and drove it over a guardrail, down a steep 50-ft hill into a forest, hit a fence and rolled the truck onto its side.
Clark James, who lives near the accident scene, said the boys came to his house next to ask for help. Opening the door at 2:30 a.m. with shotgun in hand, James was surprised to see two young boys. He was even more surprised to hear one of them say, “I’m drunk and I had a wreck.”
“I looked at him and I thought, ‘You’re kind of young to be out drinking,’” James told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The boy may turn out to be the youngest person charged with drunk driving in Arkansas, but he’s not the youngest in the nation. That distinction goes to an 11-year-old in Alabama who was charged with a DUI in July 2007 after leading police on an eight-mile chase at speeds of up to 100 mph.
The naked, crazy truth
Of course, some things only improve over time. Like the fine art of road rage.
Take it from two men out driving around Sandy, Utah, searching for a lost cat. One hundred columns ago, proper road rage technique would have been to honk at the men for driving too slowly and then incite a physical altercation. No style at all and far too logical.
This past May, those two men experienced the next generation of road rage: Ver. Crazy 2.0.
While looking for the cat on a quiet residential street, the pair noticed a woman driving directly toward them. After ramming the men’s Bronco twice for no apparent reason, she then pushed it 100 yd down the street.
The woman then hopped out of her car completely naked and tried to attack one of the men. She then tried to steal their Bronco, but when that didn’t work, she took off on (bare)foot down the street.
Police arrested her a few minutes later when she was located at a nearby home, pounding on the front door, yelling, “Hey guys, remember me from the rodeo?!”
