Death by Frozen Poop

I know there is something wrong with me because I enjoy reading stories about frozen waste from airplane bathrooms that falls to Earth and almost kills people.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/02/07/ice-roof.html?ref=rss

When I think of the ways I could die, almost all of them are better than being killed by flying poop. That’s the sort of thing that could erase a lifetime of accomplishment. I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd. If I die from frozen restroom waste, my friends and family would have trouble stifling a laugh. And who could blame them, really?

“How did he die?” someone might ask. “I guess you could say he got pissed off,” one of my ex-friends would reply, before laughing heartily.

It seems unlikely I would be killed by airplane waste, but it also seems unlikely a bird would crap exactly in the middle of my bald spot, and that happened. I don’t rule anything out. When I hear jet sounds, I stand under a doorway.

Imagine what would happen if I were doing a book signing, and the frozen waste from the plane missed me, but killed the guy standing in line waiting for my autograph. When telling the story later, would I be able to resist saying “The shit hit the fan”? I think not. And that is why I probably deserve to be killed by frozen poop.

Comments

[Fiscal Musings]

An interesting way to die that I can honestly say I've never considered. Maybe it'll make it into the next Saw movie...

[Matt Fenner]

Reminds me of the Darwin Awards

[Angela]

This whole blog entry sounds like something that was the subject of discussion around here several years ago. I live very close to Lake Erie and some of the other people were puzzled by this blue gunk that ended up on their roofs. Main theory at that time was that airplanes were emptying their lavoratories over Lake Erie thinking it wouldn't hit anything. I don't know how it was ever resolved and tried to find some old articles to send to you, but couldn't find anything.

[simmso]

I love the Husbands attitude (although he doesn't use these exact words):

Shit Happens!

Well frozen shit in this case. hehehe :)

[simmso]

I love the Husbands attitude (although he doesn't use these exact words):

Shit Happens!

Well frozen shit in this case. hehehe :)

[eknirb]

Why do I think Dogbert might have a business that sells flying poop?

[Paul C]

Scoot

Some years ago, a British police car on routine patrol spotted what it thought was a meteor falling to earth. This hit a cabbage field somewhere out in the remote redneck country in East Anglia (England's answer to Tenessee and Alabama) and impacted the ground with an audible thump that made things shake a bit. Having seen roughly where the thing landed, the intrepid coppers went out with spades to see if they could dig it up, which they did: they discovered it to be a largish roughly cuboid block of indistinct smaller objects bound together in blue-tinged ice.

This they took back to the police station and preserved in the canteen fridge-freezer before writing reports and ringing local universities. The local university said they were interested, but it would be a day or two before they could collect, so could the police keep it safe? Knowing the thing was preserved in the fridge where the police canteen kept their food items, they said OK.... and THEN there was a power cut and it defrosted....

(Do I need to spell out in this context what it really was?)

[Ketta]

I really hope Scott reads this comment, I know he'll like it.

I might have caused death or at least mayhem as a kid with a bag of barf from an airplane.

My parents were divorced when I was young, and I have a younger sister. My dad used to trade us back and forth with my mom, and he had a small plane he'd fly from Port Angeles to Yakima (WA state). We always flew over Seattle on our route, and often I'd get a bit airsick and use the handy bag Dad had available (little planes get tossed about a lot).

Once though, the bag had a hole in it and I'd barfed a big load. We were right over Seattle and my dad made me push it out the window (it was like the squishy plastic doors on a jeep). I watched it fall right down to the busy streets not far from the ferries. We were too far up to see where it went exactly, but ever since I just *knew* it must have landed on someone's windshields and splattered puke everywhere.

I hope it never hurt anyone, but I laugh every time I play that over in my mind.

[John Reedy]

If I were an evil-doer, I would freeze people inside poop to kill them. That would be an even less likely way to die from frozen poop, however, possible still.

http://awritersblock.com

[Martin]

Wouldn't running an RFID receiver cost more in electrical terms than running the lights :(

Perhaps a better solution is to educate children and family members about green issues. Alternatively tell your children that they kill a fairy ever time they leave a light on.

[D.Bert]

This actually happens a lot more than you'd think.

[Ernie]

Well over 50 years agowe chanted these lines as we terrorized the neighbourhood on our bicycles:
"The night was black, and the moon was blue
Around the corner a shitwagon flew
A shot rang out
A cry was heard
A cop was hit by a flying t..."

[BuyStuff]

So THAT'S how you polish a turd!

[Adrian Rodriguez]

hey, but what if you listen the sound of something falling down, and you decided to look up to the sky, and then the turd hits you in the face... I think that could be the worst scenario...

or even worse, if you bend over to pick something up, and then it hits you on the hips and you become handicapped. Man, that's not funny, it's something between bizarre and blurry. Ay Caramba!

-Adryan

[egg]

It's hard to believe but this could still have been better. If the waste had dropped a few moments later the plane would have been over Dover in Calgary....One of the worst crap filled neighborhoods in the whole city. THAT would have been the best.

the headline: Airplane fires turd missile into crack house. Ed Stelmach claims it is part of his previously unknown plan to combat crime.....

[Coupland Fan]

Falling frozen aviation waste was a plot device in (Douglas) Coupland's "All Families Are Psychotic," one of the greatest works of modern lit, IMHO. I don't know if he coined the term, but I laughed for days after reading "poopsicle"...

[Rob]

We're all rooting for you to legitimately be able to say "the shit hit the fan" provided it happens to the other guy.

Of course, if it happens to you the Obits would hopefully be titled in poor taste,

your critics,
Shitty Cartoonist Killed By Same
your fans,
Shitstorm Finally Gets Respected Cartoonist.

ok I'm not that funny. but I hope somebody deadpans,

oh..., shit.

[rk]

Do you know what you became when the shit hit your head ???? SHITHEAD :-)

[BobUK]

Don't worry about irreverent comments from former friends and/or family - simply come back and haumt their toilet. Then you could literally scare the crap out of them.

[Michael LaRocca]

This is why we read your blog. "When the shit hit the fan" will never make it into a Dilbert strip, will it?

[Keshav Bhatt]

Hehehee funny, i would not at all want to die like that, besides i too believe toilet humor always scores well ;)

[Keshav Bhatt]

Hehehee funny, i would not at all want to die like that, besides i too believe toilet humor always scores well ;)

[jim]

shit happens

[Dave]

Why is it that the flying poop is funnier because its frozen? Falling frozen poop. Turdicles? Pissicles? Turdbergs?
Oh the mirth.

[Warfreak2]

The difference is that jets don't aim for the bald spot.

[George]

You've said before that you "see" your own future, but didn't want to give details.

I understand why.

[Frauman]

Wouldn't it be worse if you were killed by unfrozen poop?

[Frauman]

Wouldn't it be worse if the poop wasn't frozen?

Sure the chance of death is much less, but still....wouldn't it be much worse?

[dsg]

Hi Scott,

At some point, we all probably deserve to die by frozen poop. Perhaps a good metaphor for life could be striving to do something worthwhile so that when we die by frozen poop that is not why we are remembered.

dsg

[G]

Also, gives whole new meaning to being "shat on from a great height"

[G]

I've heard the frozen poop referred to as "blue ice" - there was an episode of topical quiz show Have I Got News For You on BBC2 a few years ago which covered a similar incident. Announcing the scores at the end, the host said "An orange ice lolloy to our winner (whoever), and a blue ice lolly to our losers"....oddly enough, at the same time, over on BBC one they were showing the Michael Caine move Blue Ice - wonder what that was about.

[Tim c]

Here is what you could do if you dislike your neighbour: get a job cleaning passenger jets. When you are promoted to lavatory tank evacuation, start filling small containers with flight poo.
Take poo home and when you have enough, mix it and freeze it.
Build a giant catapult and practice aiming it neighbour's roof.
When confident, wait until a big jet flies overhead and launch the projectile.
A few days later, you will get overtime & bonuses as they need you to search for the leak.

[Stuart]

That was damn funny

[himanshu]

Apparently, i happen to be one of those people who spread such stories. One of my cousins asked me the other day about how they dispose poop. I had nothing better to do and i told him that they just drop it off..you should have seen his face to believe it..

Neways, i spent 1/2 hour after that trying to validate my statement..

[Rogier]

Scott,

This post made me laugh out loud this morning. Twice. Not knowing that shit was really going to hit the fan in my case:
whilst riding on my bicycle to university (weird Dutchies, I know) at about 10-15 mph, I was hit by a bird's turd. Luckily, it wasn't lethal.

[fatmantheinvincible]

To quote Howie Mandel:
"It's my potty and I'll cry if I want to"

[twounicycles]

The shit hit the fan ?

Now I remember why I risk losing my job by reading this blog at work (I'm too busy at home).

[RML]

It's the ones that you don't hear that'll kill you. :)

[Rabelais]

Yeah, being killed by in some humorous way is always one of my fears. In 458BC the Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise on him, mistaking his bald head for a stone. The tortoise survived. Even some two and a half millenia later we're stilling laughing at that one.

As Mel Brooks said;'Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when I call into an open sewer and drown'.

[J.R. Oppenheimer]

This story would have been much more amusing had the fallen object actually been an atomic bomb.

"Marian Liknes was sitting and talking on the phone in the bedroom of her southeast home Thursday morning when she heard what she thought was an explosion behind her. Indeed, it was a 500 kiloton, two-stage thermonuclear weapon. Upon which a piece of frozen poop rode."

But, as it is, feh.

[jerry w.]

If it fell from a plane owned by UPS, it would answer the question posed in their ads:

What can brown do for you today? Besides punching a hole in your roof that is....

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Amit]

A great post Scott. One should really learn how to make shit interesting from you. I say that because all your 'shit'ty posts are always hilarious. You really are a 'shit-o-maniac' :D

[S]

Ah...Getting killed also has a funny side to it, except for the guy getting killed, I believe...:-)...this one post was too funny :-)

[Shrik]

Killed by flying poop. Man, that's a shitty deal.

[coachasher]

Well, we've always known that icy BM's could be deadly. (Apologies to Spider Robinson.)

[Captain Assclown]

Uh... this topic doesn't leave a lot of room for comments.

Wait... Flying poop! Ha ha!
How's that?

[Mene Tekel]

I would recommend reinforcing your roof with steel plates. Actually, pay someone else to do it, you don't want to be in the line of fire. Better yet, build a poop-bomb shelter.

[Crazie_Engineer]

I live in Calgary. I'm just glad that it wasn't my house!

[Greg]

You don't need to know anything about cricket to know that some of the mega stars who play the game (like some of the mega stars who play any sport) are shits. A few years ago an Australia mega star lost his temper with a South African fan in Johannesburg and attacked him with a cricket bat (think baseball bat but bigger and heavier and a lot less elegant). The resulting headline in a South African newspaper: "Shit hits fan".

And a few years ago in England a well-known soccer team manager named Brian Clough got thumped by a fan during a pitch invasion at his team's home ground. The headline? "Fan hits shit".

Couldn't resist sharing these bits of sporting trivia with you as a warning that shit can strike anywhere - and so can fans.

[Randolf]

Reading the story - it looks like this couple upon realizing it was frozen human waste; Wasted no time in bagging it up and sticking it in their own freezer. Now I know the nights are long in Calgary – but there must be more to keep the locals entertained than that! Well I suppose no harm done – unless it is forgoten for a while and later rediscoverd and missidentified as chocolate popsicles - hey S..t happens.

[Cpt]

I read back some other piece of blog - the one about the universe expanding - (and to avoid being ignored on that blog entry, I enter the question here so I can be ignored on this entry) and that made me think - thank you for that, now my mind hurts even more -.

You stated that humanity is a bit narrow minded as in to define the whole universe to be limited to the part we can 'see'. I would suggest that we are even more narrow minded than that: is 'our' universe the only universe or is there some other universe (or perhaps even more universes) which are also expanding, and what would happen if those universes meet up? Would they bounce off each other like balloons, would they integrate (so join forces as it were), would they even each other out (like they do with sound: send out a sound wave which is the exact opposite which then nulls out the original sound)? I would like to read your thoughts on that.

[CRM]

I think it's quite possible that a majority would decide to oppress a minority because they found death by frozen poop irresistibly funny, and "load the wheel" a bit to make it happen more often.

[William]

I've heard that high-tech researchers in the aviation field are working on a revolutionary toilet that will automatically attach a tiny parachute to each bulky turd. When released from the aircraft, shit will float gently to earth. Ecology-conscious citizens will be able to collect all this valuable organic stuff in king-size poop bags, using the parachute cloth to avoid getting their hands dirty. In the context of an international project to be known as Turd World, bags and their contents will be exchanged for cash at the local airport.

[William Smith]

If you are truly worried, I'd get new friends less fond on puns or Will Ferrel movies...

[Aardwizz]

Scott:
At 20,000 feet, the stuff freezes, and doesn't thaw fully before it hits.
American planes are not allowed to dump in the air. But Russian Aeorflot's may.

So you can tell people that you were hit by a Russian icy B.M, They're sure to be impressed.

©¿©¬

[Anarchy In Your Head]

The entire post was just a setup so you could use that pun at the end, wasn't it? That's ok. It was worth it.

[pingeee]

I used to travel in this traveling bus that the squatting urinate bowl is just a hole. So when you urinate you can see your urine splash right away to the moving street (the bus is moving). The feeling is "sensational"

[JMK]

Shit happens...

[Rob]

Of course since it's frozen poop, you'd be known as the cartoonist who was taken out by an icy BM.

Rob

[Terra]

But, would being killed by falling frozen poop be better or worse than dying while changing a lightbulb?

[John Doyle]

Surely incidents of this is where the phrase 'Shat upon from a great height' comes from?

[Kim N]

Oh my! I have been cranky all day, but I had my first laugh of the day when I read this (at 5:30pm). Just what I needed.

I would like to know why they stuck it in a ziplock bag?! Are they going to save it in their deep freezer or something? I guess they could pull it out at their next dinner party to fire up the conversation.

[Ben]

You're assuming that the person whose crap fell from the sky has a healthy fibrous diet and resulting well-constructed poo. Maybe all they eat it is sushi and jalapeno poppers. You would still be disappointed, but not dead.

[Real Live Girl]

You've now set into motion a chain of events that will end with an unbalanced person hurling homemade frozen fecalscicles at you. I've returned from the future to warn you. Just remember...Don't talk to that Bob guy.

[Arby]

These are the same kind of “lucky” people that crash and die in an airliner, are smoked by lighting or a fan fatally boinked by a stray ballistic hockey puck. I will give up the lottery win odds to not be snuffed out by some billion to one freak accident.

Ops, forgot to buy my Mega Lotto ticket this morning after getting my flight reservations to go to the NHL finals in stormy Montreal.

[Jerry Ham]

Scott,

You know the lawyer chases ambulances and the photographer chases celebrities. The newsman goes to get the "scoop". So the first reporter that gets to the scene to interview people after the "shit hit the fan" would be the "pooper scooper".

[Jaime Bakulic]

This reminds me of Dead like me, a tv series that lasted like.. 3 seasons. It was quite good.

The main character died because a toilet seat from a space station crushed her.

[Furgie]

Killed by a falling POOPsicle (hey, it's frozen, right?)? What a way to go!

[Ang]

Bird crap in the very center of your bald spot?

Dude, that's actually lucky. Swipe a Kleenex and you're good to go until you can get to a shower.

[Colin Samuels]

"I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd."

I'm reminded of comedian Rick Reynolds' comments in his tremendous "Only the Truth Is Funny" show when he wondered how the press would report his death if he were brutally murdered. While he aspired to someday be have enough name recognition that his death would be reported as "Rick Reynolds Found in Pool of Blood", he thought a more realistic goal would be the less-noteworthy "Comedian Found in Pool of Blood". Notwithstanding, he conceded that at his then-present degree of fame, it'd probably say "Man Stains Carpet".

Regardless, if you someday meet a gruesome end by frozen poop, rest assured that those of us who are regular Staceys at Waterford diners will also remember you as the restaurateur whose head was crushed by a turd.

[Tony Sutherland]

Someday Scott, in your free time when you are idly contemplating your cat's navel, you are going to have to blog the psychological origins of scatological humour. How deep-seated does it have to be that anyone will always laugh over a pooh joke?

[Albert]

Death by icy BM (ICBM) sounds more better and is technically true.

[tony]

isn't it an urban myth about planes emptying their toilets, after all it is only trains that they warn you about not flushing while in the station.

[Andrew]

"Lee said the agency will track down the aircraft to notify its operator that its toilet system needs to be fixed."

My question is, how do they plan to figure out what plane the poop came from?

Are they going to take DNA samples from the frozen turds, and cross reference it with all the passengers on flights that flew within 50 miles of the home in a 2 hour window?

[Bill]

That was definitely one of the wierdest news items I have ever seen.

[quantum_flux]

That's what happens when the shit hits the fan!

[jerry w.]

Hey Scott,

I think "he got pissed on" might be more correct. A reminder of the old line:

"Always better to be pissed off than pissed on, unless that's what you're into."

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

“How did he die?” someone might ask. “I guess you could say he got pissed off,” one of my ex-friends would reply, before laughing heartily.

[Rob]

Hole'y shit...
Whole shit?

[miles archer]

the classic joke includes the acronymn ICBM

[Steve M]

I have no doubt that Scott could make us laugh talking about someone dying of diarrhea. But it would more along the lines of "Tripping down a flight of stairs on the way to the bathroom" or "Being too close to a sick elephant" sorta death.

Thanks for this post Scott, you made me laugh.

[Jacob Germain]

I'm offended somehow. Ask me why later

[Jim]

Presumably, the frozen turd would hit you in the head. Would you then have shit for brains?

[Frank Brasser]

Ever ate a banana while taking a dump? It's a really cool experience: it feels like instant digesting.

One worse way to die is dying out of dehydration in the desert, because you couldn't reach te oasis fast enough, because of water in your knee.

[Craig Taylor]

I actually live in cow town(Calgary). This reminds me of a poem I heard at a rodeo:

I saw a birdie in the sky
Who shot some whitewash in my eye
And did I cry?
No
Because I'm just glad that bulls don't fly

:)

Who knew we had to watch out for crap beyond those 10 days in July for the Stampede?

[Rpr9999]

Each passenger should only be allowed 1 ounce of prune juice on the flight, and also, bran muffins should be outright banned.

[Kay]

unfrozen poop would be worse!:
http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1998-09.html

[Nelson Muntz]

What, no jokes about Poopsicles?

[Rob]

Shades of the cold war terror.

He was killed by an ICBM!

(say it out loud . . . )

[Greg Hughes]

"...It seems unlikely I would be killed by airplane waste, but it also seems unlikely a bird would crap exactly in the middle of my bald spot, and that happened..."

That's exactly what happened to me, too. And it was a freakin' pelican, so no small spatter. I had just arrived in Florida and arrived at the beach in Daytona. I immediately stripped off my shirt and ran for the water. When I got there, I dived in, straight into a wave to wash it off. Only I went OVER the wave and into the (whatever that low spot between waves is called), and scraped half my face off on the sand.

Not a good day. But the way I figure it, I'm pre-disastered now. Ya think?

[Paul]

Totally unrelated, but I thought this was exactly the kind of article you'd be interested in:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7238637.stm

[Al Gore (no, not really)]

I want to know if global warming will cause airline waste to thaw.

I don’t have a problem with a quick and comical death from a frozen shitcicle, but, thawed? That’s a whole different story.

Someone needs to study this.

[shan564]

Ducking every time you hear an airplane wouldn't work. It takes a long time for a turd to fall 35,000 feet, so it will most likely come when you're least expecting it.

[bear]

Some things are just too perfect and have to happen. It's a weird sort of karma. While the deity was moving one frozen turd from one pocket to the other, because it was the best he could do, it slipped soundlessly from his fingers and plummeted to earth....there would have to be someone there to receive such a gift and a true fan would make the circle complete. Imagine the tombstone. "Where were you when the shit hit the fan?"

[HALiverpool]

Hi Scott,

The articles that you post link to, never seem to be quite as interesting as you make them sound.

-HAL

[neohamster]

I hesitate to post this - it would seem getting in the first post of this column is less likely than getting struck by falling p- AAAAHHHH!!!

[obiDonWan]

OK, you scored pretty well on this one but you KNEW, you absofrickinlutely KNEW that you had a sure thing because who among us doesn't think shit is funny? Well, perhaps someone dying of diarrhea, but that's a minority...