9/11

‘Tis been a while since I’ve done a post of my “Really?” feature, so now is as good of a time as any, I imagine.

Let’s start in California.

I’m sure everybody knows what 911 is for. If there’s an emergency or something along those lines, dial 911 and get connected to the proper authorities, right? Simple enough.

Apparently, it’s for more than that to one fella.

This dude Jimmy was arrested because he placed more than 100 calls to 911 — in one month!

See, turns out the government is controlling his mind and body, via satellites or some crazy story like that!

Jimmy even keeps a notebook with all the calls he makes to 911!

How nuts is Jimmy? This is what he told CBS Sacramento:

“My brain, I can feel it starting. I’m blasted by the signals, every couple of minutes. I yell and I scream, ‘Stop it, I don’t need this,’ but they never listen.”

Does anyone else think it might be worth somebody throwing Jimmy into a padded room?

Though this was months ago, it makes one wonder if Jimmy kept it up. He told CBS Sacramento he’d keep it up if need be.

He’s probably been fine the last week or so, though. You have to figure with this government shutdown, the people monitoring Jimmy are currently out of work.

****

Look, if you want to go to a strip club, do it.

But leave the kids at home.

Turns out this dude in Florida needed his fix so bad, he decided to bring a friend and his kid — a 3-year old — along. But he was leaving his kid and friend in the truck. You know, to be responsible and make sure the kid is doing OK.

However, somebody who is thinking about going to a strip club when he is watching his kid — at 1 a.m. nonetheless — probably doesn’t have the greatest taste in friends.

See, it turns out the friend couldn’t resist the urge of nekked chicks on stage, either!

In he went.

Where did that leave our little 3-year old? In the truck, of course.

Apparently this little one was left alone for 30 minutes or so when an employee (maybe one of the strippers?) saw the kid alone in the car and called the cops.

Our hero, Jordan, tried to pin it on his friend. The cops didn’t buy it all and Jordan was cuffed and stuffed.

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

But it gets a tad bit better. According to the Huffington Post story, which is linked above, this isn’t the first time this has happened in Florida. The report lists seven others — including a former NFL player, as well as an actual stripper — who left their kids unattended to visit (or work) in a strip club.

Yes, folks, this is ‘Merica.

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I’m not against Walmart in any shape or form. I know a lot of people are, but I’m not. The company employs many people and offers things at a cheaper rate than many. Personal thoughts aside, this next one makes me shake my head.

A Virginia man went to the retail giant to cash a check, and he brought his three young daughters along.

No biggie, right?

Apparently not in Woodbridge, Virginia, according to a report by MyFoxDC.com.

See, Joseph is in an interracial marriage — for 10 years. His daughters are all age four or under, including 2-year-old twins. In the parking lot, he was on the phone while he made sure the daughters were buckled in. This is where it got a little crazy.

After picking up his wife, he headed home. An innocent day, right? Not so much.

When they got home, a cop was waiting. Turns out Walmart security called the police to make sure the kids were indeed Joseph’s.

Seriously. This is 2013, right?

The cop then looked at their IDs and asked the 4-year-old child to point out who her mother and father were.

As often noted in these posts — you can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Apparently a Walmart security guard thought it was odd, this guy and some interracial kids. We didn’t just warp back to the 50s and 60s, did we?

The wife then called Warmart, understandably so. After speaking with a manager, she was transferred to some security guy, who passed the buck off by saying a customer raised the flag.

The wife told MyFoxDC.com this piece to really think about:

“Well, the customer was concerned because they saw the children with your husband and he didn’t think that they fit. And I said, ‘What do you mean by they don’t fit?’ And I was trying to get her to say it. And she says, ‘Well, they just don’t match up.’”

They don’t match up? Sheesh.

Walmart said it was looking into the situation. The couple said they’ll never shop at Walmart again. Who can blame them?

Hopefully this incident is isolated, but you never can tell in this day and age.

****

This one is fantastic.

We live in a blue-ribbon society. As a sportswriter and a fan of sports, this drives me up a wall.

Let’s get real for a second — when it comes to sports, you win or you lose. Bottom line. I learned at a young age what both were like. But, playing on some bad teams in high school really made you learn what losing was like.

And how to do it right.

When we lost, we lost. My parents — or parents of my friends and teammates — didn’t go up in arms because we lost. They didn’t try and sugarcoat it. It was reality. It happens.

Not these days. See, with so many youth leagues and everything else, everybody seems to get trophies or ribbons.

You finished seventh? Here’s a ribbon. You were last? Here’s a participation trophy.

Blue-ribbon society. And it’s downright ridiculous. Many parents don’t think their kids can do wrong (believe me, many parents think their kids will be the next Michael Jordan, despite the fact they are the 15th kid off the bench, can’t dribble without falling over and haven’t made a basket in their entire life) and then leagues and such get spooked to try and make it so kids don’t have to fully deal with the reality of wins and losses.

Take, for example, this California youth football league.

This league fines — yes fines — teams if they win by more than 35 points.

I once did some freelance work and covered a Pop Warner football game where the one team won like 50-0 and held the opposing team to negative 25 (or something like that) of total yards. There were no issues there. Kids dealt with it as reality.

Not so in this league, apparently.

So it costs a team $200 if they win by this big margin. Not only that, the coaches on the team will be suspended from league activities for two weeks!

Now you have teams doing things different to avoid the fines, like not kicking extra points and field goals.

This is society today, folks.

I’m glad I didn’t get trophies for just being a participant. And I’m also happy I took my lumps as a kid. It made it so I appreciated winning much more and it has helped me realize winning and losing goes way beyond sports — it’s reality in every part of life.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!