Posted by Damozel | In North Carolina---a state I called home for many, many years---a man whose barbecue smoker was sold at an auction is fighting for custody with the purchaser for custody of the amputated leg he was storing in it.
Anyway, the poor man who originally owned the leg had put it inside the barbecue smoker and put the barbecue smoker inside a storage facility after he lost his home. When he was unable to pay his storage fees, his things were all sold at auction, including the barbecue smoker with the leg inside it. The leg's new owner wants to "share custody." You might be surprised, and the BBC evidently is, but I barely raised an eyebrow because, as I said, I am from there. I knew what he wanted with it:
Mr Wood's leg was amputated above the knee after a plane crash in 2004.
He asked to keep the leg so he could be buried as a whole man when he died, and stored it at the facility in Maiden after losing his home.
After buying the smoker last Tuesday, Mr Whisnant looked inside and found a man's leg wrapped in a wire screen.
He initially gave the leg to the police, who concluded it had not been removed as a result of a crime and sent it to a funeral home until Mr Wood could pick it up.
But after making money by charging adults $3 (£1.47) and children $1 (49p) to look inside the empty smoker, Mr Whisnant asked for it back.
His request was refused by the funeral home, so he decided to try to persuade Mr Wood to share custody and profits. North Carolina pair feud over leg (BBC News)
As Mr. Whisnant so rightly points out, "Halloween's just round the corner" and Halloween means he can raise the price of admission for a view of the subject of this "strange incident."(BBC News) But the original owner is having none of it. He just wants his leg back. He doesn't mind "the 15 minutes of fame," he said, but he's not down with having his leg being made into a "freak show."(BBC News)
This reminds me of the old story, always so popular around children's campfires back in the day, of the teeny tiny woman who took a bone she found on the ground at a cemetery and who heard a teeny tiny voice insisting with every-growing power, "Give me my bone!" And everyone who ever sat around a campfire at Scout Camp knows the punchline of the story is, [scream] "TAKE IT!" [/scream]
"...Happy Halloween, Mr Whisnant..."
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