Friday, January 10, 2014

Wedgies, from Gareth


Byter Gareth sent me a text message with a link to a news story and a suggestion: “Maybe a bites (sic) about Wedgies?”

This is the news item:

MAN DIES AFTER “ATOMIC WEDGIE” 
A MAN has been arrested after his stepfather was suffocated with his own underwear and struck on the head. 
Brad Davis, 33, was arrested and reportedly told Oklahoma police he gave his stepfather, Denver Lee St. Clair, 58, an “atomic wedgie.”
Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said he had never heard of “an atomic wedgie,” before Davis told investigators about the incident, Oklahoma's NewsOK reports. “I'd never seen this before, but when we first looked at our victim seeing the waistband of his underwear was around his neck,” Booth said. Booth said Davis told investigators that he went to his stepfather's residence and his stepfather “jumped him.” 
St. Clair had a head wound and appeared to have been in a fight. The underwear St. Clair was wearing had been pulled up his back and over his head, leaving the waistband around his neck. Booth said it was the first time he had ever heard of someone being killed by a pair of underwear. 
St Clair died on December 21. The cause of death has been determined to be from blunt force trauma to the head and asphyxiation. The death has been ruled a homicide.
http://www.news.com.au/world/man-dies-after-atomic-wedgie/story-fndir2ev-1226798101625 

Some comments:

It’s a strange thing about wedgies: on one level they are considered a source of humour, yet they can maim and, as now seen, kill. Does the fact that they can injure make them an unsuitable source for humour? After all, falls on banana peels have been a cause for jokes since vaudeville and silent screen days. 

(A quick digression about the comic genius of Charlie Chaplin: 
The playwright Charles MacArthur had been brought to Hollywood to do a screenplay, but was finding it difficult to write visual jokes.
"What's the problem?" asked Chaplin. 
"How, for example, could I make a fat lady, walking down Fifth Avenue, slip on a banana peel and still get a laugh? It's been done a million times," said MacArthur. "What's the best way to GET the laugh? Do I show first the banana peel, then the fat lady approaching, then she slips? Or do I show the fat lady first, then the banana peel, and THEN she slips?" 
"Neither," said Chaplin without a moment's hesitation. "You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps OVER the banana peel and disappears down a manhole.")

The difference with wedgies is that they are cruel and often bullying.



A wedgie is the wedging of a person’s lower underwear or other garments between the buttocks, usually by the garment being pulled upwards. Wedgies can be created naturally but the term usually refers to deliberate creation, often as part of a prank or bullying.

Wedgies have always been dangerous. In 2004 a 10 year old schoolboy in England needed emergency surgery to reattach a testicle to the lining of his scrotum after friends gave him an excruciating "wedgie". The children iwho gave him the wedgie admitted they copied the move from an episode of The Simpsons.

There are 3 main types of wedgies:

The Classic Wedgie: grabbing the back waistband of another person's underwear and then pulling it up there back forcing the cloth of the underwear to be driven up their butt crack.


The Melvin: the victim's underwear is pulled up from the front, to cause injury, or, at least, severe pain to the victim's genitals. The female variant is sometimes called a Minerva.

The Atomic Wedgie: hoisting the waistband of the receiver's underwear up and over their head. 

The Hanging Wedgie: the victim is hung from his or her underwear, elevated above the ground.



* * * * * * * *

So as you sit at your computer, drinking your first coffee of the day before girding your unwedgied loins to start work, let me give you some final images on the topic of wedgies (thank Gareth for this). . .




* * * * * * * * *

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.