The Vicar of "Spudly"

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) I worked for a small hospital in Illinois, where, one summer night, a local arrived in the E.R. with a Pepsi bottle stuck up his back side. He was in the backyard painting his house, he said, when he fell to the ground, whereupon he landed, with perfect aim, directly onto the Pepsi bottle.

Not a soul believed the guy. But the bottle was removed and he was discharged without incident.

Imagine my fit of laughter this morning when I read this little tidbit from the U.K.:

The clergyman, in his 50s, told nurses at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital he had been hanging curtains when he fell backwards on to his kitchen table and got a potato stuck up his rectum. He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap, said the vicar...[who] had to undergo a delicate operation to extract the vegetable.

According to hospital officials, who apparently decided that this was the perfect time to bring up other such incidents, the E.R. staff at Sheffield General have removed a number of foreign objects from the backsides and genitals of people up and down the U.K. A can of deodorant, a cucumber, a Russian doll, and a carnation are among the items that have been stuck.

A word of warning to those visiting Sheffield: Don't drink the water! (Or, for that matter, eat the potatoes!!)