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Authors: Uncle John’s
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midcourt (and after traveling, which wasn’t called), Webber called time-out, allowing Michigan to reset the clock and inbound closer to their net, and hope to turn at least a two-point play. The big problem with that common late-game strategy was that Michigan didn’t have any time-outs left. Webber was called for a technical foul, and North Carolina got the ball back, sunk two free throws, and won the game.
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MARRIAGE ACCIDENTS
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H USBAND-DAD
A 60-year old Ohio widow named Valerie Spruill learned a chilling truth in 2004: Her dead husband was actually her father! Sometime earlier she had found out that a “family friend” she grew up with was actually a prostitute…and her mother. Apparently, her father was only 15 years old when he knocked up a “woman of the night,” and the little baby—Valerie—lived a very full life before finding the awful truth. When Spruill’s story made national news in 2012, she served as a warning that familiar familial relations are not always what they seem to be.
HUSBAND-BROTHER
A South African couple had the picture-perfect relationship. After falling in love at first sight when they met at college in 2006, the lovebirds dated for five years. Then they became engaged. Then they finally got around to meeting each other’s single parents. To everyone’s surprise, the parents already knew each other. They’d been together in the 1980s and had two kids. After splitting up (mom cheated on dad), the sibling toddlers were separated and raised 50 miles apart. Making matters even more complicated: The sibling-bride-to-bewas eight months pregnant. “I can’t think straight right now,” the horrified grandma-to-be told reporters. At last report, the sibling couple had split up.
HUSBAND-WIFE
Six months after she got married, Minati Khatua of Rourkela, India, discovered that her husband was actually a woman. She had suspicions that something was wrong because her “husband” would never let her see “him” naked. Khatua finally found out the truth by bursting into the bathroom one day when “he” was taking a bath: The husband had no…husband parts. S/he ran away, taking Khatua’s Jeep and dowry money. S/he remains at large.
TWO ACCIDENTAL DEATHS
• Nancy Lincoln, mother of nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln, died in 1818 after drinking a glass of milk from the family cow, which had been grazing on poisonous snakeroot and passed the poison into the milk.
• A woman from Donetsk, Ukraine, thought she was opening a can of beer she found in a train station, but she was actually pulling the pin out of a grenade. (You know how that goes.) The woman died; 17 other people were injured.
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DUH.COM
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F urniture.com (1998–2000)
Great Idea: Save shoppers the hassle of going to a furniture store, picking out a table, and figuring out how to get it home.
Fatal Flaw: Only after the site’s owners shelled out a whopping $2.5 million for the domain name did they discover that neither FedEx nor UPS would ship a couch. More-expensive shipping companies were required, which meant that a $200 table cost $300 to ship. Plus, items took an average of one month to arrive at the customer’s home. The company lasted two years, falling apart in 2000. (The site is still live, albeit managed by a different company.)
Kozmo.com (1998–2001)
Great Idea: Deliver anything to anyone at any time.
Fatal Flaw: It cost more to get the products to the customers than the customers had to pay for them. Available in nine U.S. cities, Kozmo offered free delivery of “videos, games, DVDs, music, mags, books, food, basics & more” in less than one hour, with no minimum purchase. That meant that if a stoner wanted a bag of Doritos at 4:00 a.m., a Kozmo driver would have to track down the Doritos and make it to the stoner’s apartmentin lightning speed. Despite obtaining $280 million from investors, Kozmo never made a profit. By the time it went bankrupt, it was nearly $20 million
----
MARRIAGE ACCIDENTS
----
H USBAND-DAD
A 60-year old Ohio widow named Valerie Spruill learned a chilling truth in 2004: Her dead husband was actually her father! Sometime earlier she had found out that a “family friend” she grew up with was actually a prostitute…and her mother. Apparently, her father was only 15 years old when he knocked up a “woman of the night,” and the little baby—Valerie—lived a very full life before finding the awful truth. When Spruill’s story made national news in 2012, she served as a warning that familiar familial relations are not always what they seem to be.
HUSBAND-BROTHER
A South African couple had the picture-perfect relationship. After falling in love at first sight when they met at college in 2006, the lovebirds dated for five years. Then they became engaged. Then they finally got around to meeting each other’s single parents. To everyone’s surprise, the parents already knew each other. They’d been together in the 1980s and had two kids. After splitting up (mom cheated on dad), the sibling toddlers were separated and raised 50 miles apart. Making matters even more complicated: The sibling-bride-to-bewas eight months pregnant. “I can’t think straight right now,” the horrified grandma-to-be told reporters. At last report, the sibling couple had split up.
HUSBAND-WIFE
Six months after she got married, Minati Khatua of Rourkela, India, discovered that her husband was actually a woman. She had suspicions that something was wrong because her “husband” would never let her see “him” naked. Khatua finally found out the truth by bursting into the bathroom one day when “he” was taking a bath: The husband had no…husband parts. S/he ran away, taking Khatua’s Jeep and dowry money. S/he remains at large.
TWO ACCIDENTAL DEATHS
• Nancy Lincoln, mother of nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln, died in 1818 after drinking a glass of milk from the family cow, which had been grazing on poisonous snakeroot and passed the poison into the milk.
• A woman from Donetsk, Ukraine, thought she was opening a can of beer she found in a train station, but she was actually pulling the pin out of a grenade. (You know how that goes.) The woman died; 17 other people were injured.
----
DUH.COM
----
F urniture.com (1998–2000)
Great Idea: Save shoppers the hassle of going to a furniture store, picking out a table, and figuring out how to get it home.
Fatal Flaw: Only after the site’s owners shelled out a whopping $2.5 million for the domain name did they discover that neither FedEx nor UPS would ship a couch. More-expensive shipping companies were required, which meant that a $200 table cost $300 to ship. Plus, items took an average of one month to arrive at the customer’s home. The company lasted two years, falling apart in 2000. (The site is still live, albeit managed by a different company.)
Kozmo.com (1998–2001)
Great Idea: Deliver anything to anyone at any time.
Fatal Flaw: It cost more to get the products to the customers than the customers had to pay for them. Available in nine U.S. cities, Kozmo offered free delivery of “videos, games, DVDs, music, mags, books, food, basics & more” in less than one hour, with no minimum purchase. That meant that if a stoner wanted a bag of Doritos at 4:00 a.m., a Kozmo driver would have to track down the Doritos and make it to the stoner’s apartmentin lightning speed. Despite obtaining $280 million from investors, Kozmo never made a profit. By the time it went bankrupt, it was nearly $20 million
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