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Taking The Piss: Weird Wee Stories

Mighty_Emperor

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School Sprays Skunk Scent on Pine Trees

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Nov 19, 4:17 PM (ET)



MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - There's a stinky surprise waiting for thieves who snatch pine trees from the University of Minnesota to use as Christmas trees: Instead of the smell of a freshly-cut tree, they'll get a whiff of roadkill skunk.

The university is spraying balsam fir, Scotch pine and anything that looks like a holiday tree with skunk scent ordered from a West Virginia trapping store.

Grounds superintendent Les Potts said the university lost seven evergreens last year to poachers. Christmas tree thieves have been sawing down trees in the middle of the night for years, but last year they lopped the tops off 18-foot trees that were more than 20 years old. The trees probably are permanently disfigured, Potts said.

The spray, which is being administered on still, rainless days, should cover at least the tops of 400 to 500 trees.

So, why skunk?

"Can you think of something worse?" Potts asked.

Cold weather masks the smell. But warm, indoor air releases it.

"We'll probably still lose some trees, but I have some satisfaction in knowing that it's not going to work out the way the thief thinks it will," Potts said.

He admitted wondering what the campus will smell like when warm weather hits next spring.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031119/D7UTTRJO0.html
 
Yeah, that's a sensitive topic for me after we had to endure for about six months a family of five cute smelly skunkies comfortably lodging underneath a neighbour's tool shed. For some obscure reason, the aroma would start at precisely 9:30 every evening and could only be compared to an emergency at a nearby Shell Oil refinery.:eek:
 
I've never smelt skunk and don't know anybody who has. Can anybody tell me what it smells like?
 
drjbrennan said:
I've never smelt skunk and don't know anybody who has. Can anybody tell me what it smells like?

I think Gloria probably described it fairly accurately.:cross eye
 
"an emergency at a nearby Shell Oil refinery."


Still don't know what it smells like.
 
When I was still at school (many many moons ago) I was told that when the UK switched from coal gas to natural gas they had to add a smell (the stuff coming out of the north sea being practially oderless) so that people could readily spot (sniff?) gas leaks and they used an artificial version of the smelly stuff that skunks secrete.
Then again I was only about 10 and they used to tell me anything
 
It's also very cloying. It seems to attach itself to the insides of your nose and throat and you end up being able to taste it.

I can remember going to a zoo as a child and there being a little indoor enclosure of skunks. The smell was what I imagined an open coffin to smell like. For years afterwards I could always "remember" the smell. :cross eye
 
StoneMunky said:
when the UK switched from coal gas to natural gas they had to add a smell (the stuff coming out of the north sea being practially oderless) so that people could readily spot (sniff?) gas leaks and they used an artificial version of the smelly stuff that skunks secrete.

That is sort of true... ethanethiol (CH3CH2SH, previously called ethyl mercaptan) is added to methane to provide a smell.

The skunk's smell comes from a mixture of other thiol compounds, I think butanethiol (CH3CH2CH2SH) is one of them.
 
StoneMunky said:
When I was still at school (many many moons ago) I was told that when the UK switched from coal gas to natural gas they had to add a smell (the stuff coming out of the north sea being practially oderless) so that people could readily spot (sniff?) gas leaks and they used an artificial version of the smelly stuff that skunks secrete.
Then again I was only about 10 and they used to tell me anything

I was an Apprentice Gas Fitter at the Old Kent Road Depot in London at that time (early seventies), and the word then was that many different smells were trialled; Poo, rotten fish etc, but in the end they simulated the smell of good old coal gas 'cos the feeling was that Joe Public wouldn't be able to tell a gas leak from a sewage leak etc.
 
Beany said:
That is sort of true... ethanethiol (CH3CH2SH, previously called ethyl mercaptan) is added to methane to provide a smell.

The skunk's smell comes from a mixture of other thiol compounds, I think butanethiol (CH3CH2CH2SH) is one of them.
Mercaptans being used because they are extraordinarily sulphurously smelly. Similiar compounds are found in cabbages.

Rotting brussel sprout fields. :cross eye
 
biological clock???

For some obscure reason, the aroma would start at precisely 9:30 every evening

years ago i spent a couple of weeks at a camping site in tuscany, near a small village called <torre civette> (little owls' tower). well, they would start <shrieking> (or whatever you call the sound they make) at - you guess it - precisely 9:30 every evening.
 
My mom's retarded poodle got sprayed by a skunk THREE TIMES IN TWO MONTHS.

I will let you know- up close, skunk smells nothing like it does when passing roadkill. Roadkill skunk smells nasty... but when its in your house... it BURNS.

Once my roomate tried to fry somethign in this chile oil, and it filled the apartment with noxious fumes that burnt our eyes. Skunk is the same, although it burns less. But it really was more of a sensation than a smell.
 
A bit of Canadian folklore, eh

"Still don't know what it smells like."

It reminds me of burnt rubber. "Results may vary." :D

You know, when I talked to locals about the skunk invasion everybody warned me to stay away. Apparently, you have to wash yourself from head to toe in tomato juice to ret rid of the smell. :rolleyes: At first I thought they were kidding me, but now it seems to be the only tested and true method. Dogs have to undergo this procedure after being sprayed quite often.

Another category of careful skunk avoiders are Canadian bus drivers: if they spot a skunk crossing the road, they'll stop and wait until the bus is safely out danger zone :)
 
Has anyone else noticed that porcupines smell strange and vile? I mean in the zoo of course, we don't have wild ones wandering the streets of South London.
Are they related to skunks at all?
 
beakboo said:
Has anyone else noticed that porcupines smell strange and vile?

You'd think they'd smell of pine or pork, wouldn't you?

Still... I expect if I was locked in a small enclosure and had to traipse around in my own excrement all day, I'd smell worse than I normally do.

I REALLY hate most zoos :furious:
 
Arthur ASCII said:
Still... I expect if I was locked in a small enclosure and had to traipse around in my own excrement all day, I'd smell worse than I normally do.
Granted Arthur, but porcupines smell unlike any animal I've ever encountered. It isn't their poo I don't think, the nearest smell I can think of is when a dog's anal glands are cleared at the vets, crossed with something burning. It's nasty. :cross eye
 
beakboo said:
Granted Arthur, but porcupines smell unlike any animal I've ever encountered. It isn't their poo I don't think, the nearest smell I can think of is when a dog's anal glands are cleared at the vets, crossed with something burning. It's nasty. :cross eye

Interesting isn't it?

A Porcupine's wicked spines ought to be defence enough, without the need for an extra, olfactory repellent.

Perhaps it's a sort of musk, aimed at attracting the opposite sex?
 
Iffy pissy Liffey

POSTED AT 5:55 AM EST Friday, Nov 26, 2004

Urine-infested river called threat to Dubliners' health


Dublin — The Guinness may be good for you in Dublin, but the river can make you really sick.

So warns the director of public health for the Irish capital, Dr. Marie Laffoy, who reported that three canoeists plying the River Liffey this week were hospitalized after catching a bacterial infection called leptospirosis. All recovered.

“In Ireland it is usually picked up from rats, although a milder form can be caught from cattle or dogs. The infection is spread through contact with rat, cattle or dog urine or cattle manure,” said Dr. Laffoy.

The infection — which initially causes headaches, rashes, fever, muscle aches, diarrhea and vomiting, and if unchecked can lead to jaundice, meningitis and kidney failure — rarely proves fatal.

Those considered most likely to catch it are farmers, vets, sewage workers and enthusiasts of water sports.

“We are advising people to avoid swimming or boating in water which is obviously polluted, as well as ensuring they cover any cuts or abrasions with a waterproof dressing while swimming or canoeing,” Dr. Laffoy said.

The Liffey is the major natural feature of Dublin, cutting the capital of 1.3 million people into two distinct halves: an often-posh south side and rougher-hewn north.

Last month, the Dublin Fire Brigade complained that its water-rescue officers were having to spend an increasing amount of time rescuing daredevil drunks from the Liffey — and then laboriously disinfecting both the rescuers and the saved from head to toe afterward.

Source
 
Sunday November 28, 2004


‘Urine power’ threatens Indon bridge


JAKARTA—A landmark bridge in Indonesia’s Sumatra island may collapse because too many people are fond of urinating on one of its steel pillars, a report said Saturday.

Public works officials have found that the Ampera Bridge, the landmark of Palembang City, the capital of South Sumatra province, has begun to lean on an angle and rocks slightly when traffic is heavy, the Jakarta Post said.

An official at the public works department in Palembang, Azmi Lakoni, was quoted as saying the bridge had deteriorated because people often took a leak on one of its piers, corroding the structure.

“We are concerned that one of its main support piers has been weakened by urine, as it is a popular spot for locals to relieve themselves,” Lakoni said.

He added that the acidic fluid’s corrosive forces could attribute to an eventual collapse of the bridge.

Officials said cargo vehicles weighing more than one ton would be diverted from the bridge.

Source
 
Hell on Wheels

A jug of pee flung from a school-bus window has a Maplewood man, well, pissed off

BY BEN WESTHOFF
[email protected].

By Dan Zettwoch


One afternoon last March, Stan Crocker went out to get the mail from the front porch of his home on Yale Avenue in Maplewood, just like any other day. But when he saw the familiar yellow school bus rumbling down its daily route, something struck him as peculiar.

Normally the bus simply sped by, but on this day it crawled to a near-stop right in front of his black Volkswagen Jetta.

Near the front of the bus, a girl in a white T-shirt -- who looked to be about ten years old -- reached out the window, held a plastic Gatorade container aloft and proceeded to dump the watery contents over the Jetta.

"I was utterly astonished. I absolutely couldn't believe it," says the 36-year-old Crocker.

He ran back into the house, grabbed his keys, jumped into his car and raced after the bus.

"The kids were gathered near the back of the bus, flipping me off," Crocker recalls. "The bus driver looked like he was trying to get away, but he got caught behind traffic at Dale and McCausland."

Crocker got out of his car and knocked on the bus' door. The driver opened it.

"You've got kids throwing Gatorade on my car!" yelled Crocker.

The driver asked him who did it, and Crocker took a step onto the bus and immediately recognized the white-shirted girl. "That kid right there!" he said.

"You'll have to take it up with Atlantic," said the driver, referring to the company that owns the fleet of buses. Crocker grudgingly left the scene.

When he got back home, he called the cops. An officer came to make a report and, in the process, noted that the Gatorade jug was blue, but the liquid dumped from it was yellow.

"That's urine," said the officer after giving Crocker's car a cursory smell-check.

This was neither the beginning nor the end of Crocker's problems with the renegade school bus. A student at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park and Central Missouri State University, Crocker says he's had numerous study sessions disrupted by the bus barreling down Yale in front of his sea-foam-green house. He says he's trailed the bus and clocked it going anywhere from 35 to 45 miles per hour. The speed limit is 25 mph.

"I was astounded by how fast that felt," he says.

The full-size bus rolls by every afternoon between 2:35 and 2:50 with the regularity of Old Faithful, says Crocker. The walls rattle. Potholes don't slow down the driver, who Crocker speculates is perhaps nearing the end of his shift and is trying to beat rush-hour traffic.

"The paint is chipping," says Crocker, gesturing toward a decaying area where the wall meets the ceiling of the otherwise fastidiously kept house.

Crocker isn't the only one bothered by the daily menace-on-wheels.

"I was cutting my grass one day, and it went flying up the street real fast," says one elderly neighborhood resident who, concerned about potential repercussions, asked not be identified in this story. "I hope nobody's crossing the street or anything. They wouldn't have much of a chance."

Crocker bought his home in 1998 in what he thought was an idyllic neighborhood. "It was as quiet a neighborhood as I could get, I thought, without moving to the suburbs," he says. Previously a salesman who hocked data-storage items to the federal government, Crocker took the advice of his wife, Suzanne, and began pursuing his dream of becoming a pediatric dietician two years ago.

He started spending a lot of time at home preparing presentations and studying for exams. And in the fall of 2003, he began noticing the school bus recklessly rolling by -- every single school day.

"I didn't want to sound like a crotchety old man," says Crocker, "but I waved the driver down and asked him if he knew the speed limit."

Crocker doesn't remember exactly what the driver said back to him, but he left the scene feeling confident that his concerns were over.

But no: The speeding continued for months, and he believes the bus is still helmed by the same lead-footed driver.

So in March -- just a few days before the urine incident -- Crocker called the Staten Island, New York-based Atlantic Express and spoke to someone in charge of bus safety.

"The guy sounded enthusiastic about handling the situation," remembers Crocker of the person who identified himself as a member of the company's safety division. "He said he'd take care of it, that they'd put the driver through safety training."

Atlantic Express general manager Ernie Bellinger says this is the first he's heard of the problem.

"We'll have one of our safety supervisors go down there and see what's going on. We don't want buses speeding through neighborhoods -- that's not what we do."

Bellinger declined to identify the school bus driver. Regarding the pee-flinging, he remarks: "That is a highly unusual situation -- if it happened."

All this is cold comfort for Crocker, who remains skeptical that anything will be done. "I wonder what else they'll do to our cars, to our property?" he says, noting that he and his wife both park their cars on the street.

Crocker sighs. "I'm not a crotchety old man, I swear."

Source
 
If there are any American Forteans reading this, the Weekly World News, or the Poor Man's Fortean Times, has been holding a series of contests where you guess which of four or five stories is made up. This story of the urine-corroded bridge was one that I recognized--I expect you could have a good chance of winning the $250 U.S. prize.

Unfortunately, it is only open to American residents.

I read in the introduction to the book News of the Weird, that the WWN used to subscribe to a very large number of newspapers, but I suppose they just visit www.forteantimes.com and www.ananova.com nowadays. You can get more than enough material from the Internet in a week to fill a thousand WWN issues--but only the WWN is running Peter Bagge's Bat Boy Comic strip.

I hope it comes out as a book!

I don't have room to collect WWN as well as FT issues, or else I'd end up in one or both of them as one of those crazy men who die underneath piles of rubbish!

That would be ironic to the point of almost being self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, it would only interest strict Forteans if a lot of us did the same thing. Speaking of Fortean Comic strips, that might be a good subject for FT's own Phenomen- whatchamacallit. Here let me just pull an issue of FT out from under this pile of semi-read magazines ....










P.S. Phenomenomix by Hunt Emerson. I survived but the pile didn't.

P.P.S. I look a lot like Charles Hoy Fort around his early 40's, only my glasses are Gucci bi-focals, and I part on the side.
 
The definitive de-skunking formula:

Mix a formula of 1/4 cup baking soda and one teaspoon liquid soap in a quart of hydrogen peroxide. Work the concoction into your pet's fur, then rinse completely.

De-skunking a dog is not fun. Skunks are very cute; they are also ubiquitous in Canadian suburbs, never mind the bush. They are very bold, too. Well, wouldn't you be? ;)
 
If a man doesn't clean himself carefully after having sex, dried sperm can partially block the vent of his you-know-what, with the result that when he next goes for a wee, he can find himself peeing in two or more different directions!

Not that I would know, of course - I -er- read it in a magazine or something.

In fact, I don't ever have sex, and -er- I don't even pee.... :oops:
 
rynner: Thanks for the public information broadcast :)

I find pipecleaners are very effective. ;)

:shock:

-------------------
January 12, 2005

Beer can filled with urine inadvertently leads to man's death


PORTLAND, Ore. - Sentencing will be Jan. 20 for a man who unintentionally killed a friend who had given him a beer can filled with urine as a practical joke.

In a deal with prosecutors, 46-year-old David Shippentower pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in November.

He punched Leonard Strong in the head last July on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Strong died two days later.

Court documents said Strong was left in a driveway in more than 100-degree heat and was discovered by police.

His blood alcohol content was more than four times the legal limit for driving.

Shippentower told federal judge Ancer Haggerty he did not mean to kill Strong but was upset at the prank.

--------------
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press.
 
rynner said:
If a man doesn't clean himself carefully after having sex, dried sperm can partially block the vent of his you-know-what, with the result that when he next goes for a wee, he can find himself peeing in two or more different directions!

Not that I would know, of course - I -er- read it in a magazine or something.

In fact, I don't ever have sex, and -er- I don't even pee.... :oops:

Rynner, thanks for that fascinating fact. What an education this board is :D
 
Man peed way out of avalanche

Greets

Man peed way out of avalanche

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out.

But as he dug with his hands, he realised the snow would fill his car before he managed to break through.

He had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realised he could urinate on the snow to melt it, local media reported.

He said: "I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there."

Parts of Europe have this week been hit by the heaviest snowfalls since 1941, with some places registering more than ten feet of snow in 24 hours.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1261997.html

mal

(make a good UL if it's already one!)

(edit - what i should have typed is make a good UL if it isn't already one)

mal
 
Peeing is a good thing to do when trapped in snow after an avalanch, it tells you which way is up. I suppose spitting would do just as well.
 
rynner:
If a man doesn't clean himself carefully after having sex, dried sperm can partially block the vent of his you-know-what, with the result that when he next goes for a wee, he can find himself peeing in two or more different directions!


Sergeant stations himself at the urinal and plucks out three double-pissing squaddies.

"Yes you! I've a special duty for you 'orrible men. The Regimental goat has just shat up both sides of his pen! With your tooth-brushes, on the double . . . "

:?
 
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