So I\’ve got this great idea for a screenplay.
The story goes like this…
Due to severe beatings she had received as a child, a thirty-something year old woman develops a strange phobia and doesn\’t leave the bathroom for two years.
I know, bizarre, yes?
It gets more interesting.
The woman spends the majority of her time on the toilet. Yes, on the toilet.
In fact, she spends SO much time on the toilet that she becomes unable to remove herself from the commode.
Her boyfriend suspects something is wrong and tries to get her to come out from the bathroom each day, but she resists and he just brings her food and water as needed.
Eventually, the police are alerted and the woman and attached toilet seat are taken to a hospital where the seat is somehow removed.
Meanwhile, the woman\’s leg muscles are so atrophied that she may never walk again.
Now before you go thinking that I am completely warped, you should know this.
The story demonstrates that truth is stranger than fiction, because I didn\’t make this up.
I\’m absolutely amazed that something like this could even take place.
I mean, there are some pretty bizarre stories out there.
Just today there was a story about 800 dogs being seized from a triple-wide trailer home in Arizona. Yes, eight hundred, along with seventy or so caged birds.
And you can regularly find stories like this on bizarre news sites.
But this one really floors me.
Two years on the toilet.
Wow.
It\’s easy to make all kinds of scatalogical jokes about this poor woman, but I don\’t want to participate in that. I\’m just amazed that it happened at all and I feel sorry for her.
But there is a joke built into the story which I am not sure anyone has spotted.
The name of the Ness County Sheriff interviewed by the Associated Press is Bryan Whipple.
Yes, that is like Mr. Whipple, the fictional grocery store clerk that often scolded women in his store by telling them \”Don\’t squeeze the Charmin!\”
Truth is truly stranger than fiction.