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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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Why buy it? Because it's there
WARNING: The following column contains content that some viewers might find offensive. If the words "kangaroo scrotum," for instance, make you uneasy, then please don't read this sentence. Whoops. Sorry about that. Forget you read that last sentence. Well, not the last sentence. But the one with "kangaroo scrotum" in it. Dang. Let's start over.
Anyone who doesn't want to read about certain body parts of Australian animals that hop around a lot please hop along to the Sudoku column.
OK. Just adults here? Good. I just wanted to get rid of all the easily offended weirdos. This column has nothing to do with kangaroo scrotums. Well, almost nothing. I was surfing the Internet looking for an unusual gift for a friend and was amazed at some of the really strange stuff for sale. For instance, you can buy a 16th-century haunted castle in Llantwit Major in the Vale of Glamorgan. If you have no idea what a Vale of Glamorgan is, then this castle probably isn't for you, even though it's only 55,000 pounds. That's not how much the castle weighs, that's how much it costs. English pounds. An English pound is equal to some amount of U.S. dollars that is too complicated to go into here. First you have to convert the pounds to euros, then euros to yen and then, hey, forget this castle and the Vale of Glamorgan it came riding in on.
HOW ABOUT a volcano? You can't buy a volcano in Hawaii because they are large and hard to move. Where would you put Diamond Head Crater if you bought it, for instance? But you can buy a volcano called the Pukaki Lagoon Explosion Crater in New Zealand for a large amount of whatever they call their Monopoly money down there. It would probably sell quicker if it were called the Pukaki Lagoon Not-Gonna-Explode Crater, but what do I know about real estate? With the volcano you get 26 hectares of land, which is good because you're gonna need a place to keep your exploding volcano. And I'm told that a hectare of land is so much nicer than, say, an acre.
IN WISCONSIN a 76-year-old farmer is selling a 12,500-year-old mammoth skeleton. He found it in his cornfield, which is curious because mammoths were thought to prefer wheat. He hopes to get $500,000 for it so he can put his grandkids through college. I say, let the little slackers pay for their own schooling and set up the mammoth at the edge off the highway to advertise the baseball diamond you've cut into your cornfield. Erect mammoth and they will come.
Which brings us to the strangest thing I found for sale: leather pouches from Australia made out of -- you guessed it -- kangaroo scrotums. I had heard they use everything from the kangaroo except for the hop, but this is ridiculous. I just hope my friend appreciates his gift.
Buy Charles Memminger's hilarious new book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink!" at island book stores or
online at any book retailer. E-mail him at
cmemminger@starbulletin.com