CROSSING BOUNDARIES

I seem to remember something about my civil rights ending at the tip of your nose, but there must be one jackass determined to test that proposal in every town in America. In this case it was Stuart Sugaman, a 48 year old hedge fund manager on Wall Street. This particular jackass simply could not suppress his vocal enthusiasm as he peddled his exercise cycle to pounding rock music in his “Spin Class” at the Equinox gym on East 85th Street, in New York City. Sugaman loudly grunted, he ‘whooped’ and he shouted things like, “You go, girl!”
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And he continued to yell those things even after the man exercising next to him, 44 year old Christopher Carter, politely asked him to tone it down. Mr. Sugaman continued to cheer and chant and grunt even after Mr. Carter yelled at him to “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Mr. Sugaman says he was in “the zone”, and not able to respond until Mr. Carter announced, “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m getting off my bike!” At that point Mr. Sugaman did respond, chiding Mr. Carter, “Stop being a baby,” which was, evidently, not the correct response. Because at that point, according to Mr Sugaman’s lawyer, Mr.Carter dismounted his bike and shoved the boisterous Mr. Sugaman and his bike into the wall, dealing Mr. Sugaman a concussion and damaging six discs in his back. It was, says Mr. Sugaman’s lawyer, a clear case of “Spin Rage”.
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Mr. Carter’s lawyer does not disagree, but he describes Mr. Sugaman as a “real piece of work. The first thing he does after the incident is hop on his bike and work out for another 40 minutes. And the second thing he does is hire a personal-injury lawyer and the third thing he does is alert the media. Who’s kidding who?” Mr. Carter has been charged with a misdemeanor assault. Mr. Sugaman says he may very well need more surgery, and he might just sue. I’m willing to bet on that last one. I’m willing to give odds that whatever the settlement offer from Mr. Carter’s side, Mr. Sugaman will feel he is entitled to a lot more.
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The 53 year old frau from Mitterteich, in Southern Germany, only wanted to pay her respects to a dearly departed relative, but she’d had a little too much to drink and missed the entrance to the cemetery by several meters. Devotedly she refused to turn around and instead plowed through the fence and bounced across the graveyard, knocking over several headstones and eventually ending up jammed atop one of the graves, at which point a crane had to be called remove her BMW. Police figure that between the damaged headstones and the damage to the car, the frau is now in debt for about $24,000. Seriously, I think once a sick relative passes on you aren’t obligated anymore to visit them every weekend.
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A lady in Moscow, recently, got so fed up with her husband watching television and passing out drunk on vodka that she set fire to his penis. Police say it is difficult to predict if he will make a full recovery, but they say it is likely she will be spending some time in jail. In this case they suggest that her right to a happy marriage ended at the tip of his penis.
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Police didn’t mind when a member of Japan’s right wing fringe sent a letter of protest to the Prime Minster Shinzo Abe, for not attending a public ceremony at a Tokyo war shrine. It is the right of every citizen in a free society to petition their government. But the man also included in the envelope a video disc he had recorded, showing himself chopping off his own pinky finger. And just for good measure, he included the severed pinky in the envelope, because, he told police, “I thought they would ignore me if I just sent the letter, so I put in my little finger as well.” Good thinking on his part. Otherwise they might never have realized he was nuts. In this case his right to petition his government ended at the original tip of his own finger.
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On a recent Wednesday night a Tacoma housewife was shocked to discover her husband on the back porch of their home, engaging in sex with a bitch, specifically with the couple’s 4 year old pit bull terrier female. The shocked lady retained the presence of mind to snap a couple of photos of the action with her cell phone camera, which she then used to call police. As a result, Michael Patrick McPhail has been charged with bestiality, the first such charge under a new Washington State law enacted after a Seattle man recently died after engaging in sex with a horse. Did you even suspect enough of this was going on to justify a new law? I didn’t. McPhail was released on $20,000 bail and the bitch has been picked up by animal control.

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Hell, as they say, hath no fury like a bitch scorned. And that rule is not species specific. - 30 -