Thursday, May 11, 2006

Weird Shit

The strangest thing just happened. The ashtray on the back of my terlet just spontaneously exploded. We were in the other room and heard a loud "pop - clang" noise, we went in to examine the disturbance and found this:


There wasn't anything in the room that had fallen onto it (in fact - above the tank is a shelf, so nothing could have fallen onto it). We scoured the bathroom for any potential projectile, but found nothing.
It's really weird, it looks like one piece was shot back toward the wall, and one piece fell down toward the bowl. The dead cigarette butt landed roughly where it had been when there was an ashtray under it.

Observations:
- The top of the bowl was dry (no condensation) and wasn't hot or cold
- The tank never vibrates (that I've noticed)
- Room temperature was approximately 75 degrees Fahrenheit
- There was one cold cigarette butt in the ashtray (from 2 hours prior)
- Earlier there was a big thunder storm, but it had completely passed when the ashtray broke
- The ashtray broke into 4 distinct pieces, with only 2 small slivers additionally
- There were no 'impact' marks anywhere on the astray
- There were never any noticeable flaws in the (clear) glass

I'm stumped. What could cause a solid piece of glass to randomly shatter at room temperature without any discernible outside force?

Things I've ruled out:
- Falling object
- Extreme temperature flux
- Static electricity phenomena (despite porcelain and glass being excellent conductors)
- Suicide
- Ghosts, Bigfoot, Chupacabras, the Loch-Ness toilet monster, Leprechauns, Jesus, etc.

If any of you science types have any idea what could have caused this, please let me know. All of you non-science types can feel free to load on your own left-field theories.

The Freemasons assassinated my Chicago Comics ashtray!

12 comments:

Michael K said...

Mysterious happenings, in my experience are generally caused by someone not fessing up a piece of info that would explain it away. If there is a shelf above the toilet, my guess would be that someone moved it to that shelf and it slid off. You may also want to check and see if your shelf is perfectly level to prevent other things from falling. I have a shelf above my bathroom toilet and there is a picture frame that has slid off several times.

Or it's an act of God. He hates ash trays.

DC Liar said...

Mike - It's actually a doored cabinet. Plus, the cabinet overlaps the tank, so the ashtray would have had to fall backward at a 45 degree angle after reaching the ledge in order to hit the tank. No dice.

Elise - I think you win, but I still need some good nut-job theories before you get the prize.

jes said...

Whatever dude, coming from a latin mother who believes in all the superstitious ghost stuff, you've done got yourself a house guest, and I don't mean the fun drinking kind like me. . .I'm totally asking my mom if she felt strange vibes when she was at your house! Yay ghosts!

DC Liar said...

Jes- Ask your mom if Drinky count as a ghost? The weird vibes she was getting were probably just a side effect of the embedded Joe-funk.

Joe-funk is some serious shit. For those of you who don't know, Imagine fajita night at the homeless shelter. Now amp it up threefold and throw in a paper mill for sport - That's Joe-funk.

edP said...

I think it's the real ghost of the real Drinky Joe since I still believe he is dead.

And I'll believe the world is round when I step over the curve.

...but it's probably the small crack that somehow got aggrevated like E says.

But don't be so quick to rule out Chubacabra...it's like that Steve Miller song

Chuba Chuba
Chubacadabra
I want to reach out and mysteriously break the ashtray in your crappa

Anonymous said...

ball lightening or maybe a well placed small caliber round -- any grassy knolls nearby?

DC Liar said...

Nope, all of the "grassy knolls" are in Joe's bathroom.

At least, I'm hoping like hell that that's grass.

Josh Jenkins said...

You know what is the weird thing about the toilet? Those scary bugs on the back of it. One of those bugs scared the ashtray.

edP said...

Did you ever figure out what happened to your ashtray?

DC Liar said...

I'm ready to wholly accept Elise's explanation.

Anonymous said...

Do you have any devices where you can booby-trap an ashtray and detonate it from a remote location?

Anonymous said...

Never mind, I don't want to know.