Paging Richard Gere... Mr. Richard Gere... White Courtesy Phone

So, like a lot of people this time of year, I am on vacation. I moved from Indiana to North Carolina and then spent a few days in Florida for good measure. Bronzed and rested, I awaited the delivery of a new refrigerator earlier today. When it arrived, the delivery men were arguing over a rumor they had heard involving Richard Gere and a gerbil. Their argument was not if Richard Gere had ever stuffed gerbils into his rectum, but rather how many gerbils he could fit in his rectum at a time. One mover thought 1 maximum, the other said three if they were small enough. I tried to set the over under at 2.3 gerbils, but I saw no takers.

This got me to thinking, and Googling... are these stories true and how do you remove a gerbil from one's rectum? Well, I was able to find this story at The Straight Dope. While it appears as if there are no documented cases of gerbil stuffing, there are some pretty interesting documented cases of people stuffing broomsticks, umbrellas, baseballs, and a jar of peanut butter in their poop shoot. And I thought my fetish for sticking Chicken Fries up my ass was odd. Then I found this.

If you are short on time and don't want to click on the link, all you need to read is this, "At a hushed press conference a hospital spokesman described what happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and aflame shot out of the tubing, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball." "Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract." People. They so crazy!