The Fablieaux

If you’ve ever doubted that mental illness can be passed from parent to child, a woman in China’s Sichuan province just proved you wrong.

Who knows where Lin Zongxiu’s information came from, but someone, somewhere had informed her that soup made from a man’s head was a remedy for psychiatric problems.

Not only did Ms. Lin believe this nugget of folk wisdom, but she decided to put it to the test.

On the one hand, you can’t blame her: She was presumably desperate to help her 25-year-old daughter, who had suffered from mental illness for years. On the other hand, well, let’s just say you don’t pop into your corner grocery and buy a man-head. The implications are obvious.

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Ever since 2006, employees of the Old Faithful Inn have supplied Old Faithful with urine. Without the urine, the employees were told by geologists from the University of Wyoming, the geyser won’t erupt every 65 to 92 minutes. Without the geyser, there would be no tourists; Without tourists, they would lose their jobs. The joke apparently got out of hand, and for over 3 years tourists have been treated to eruptions with a little something extra.

Two seasonal Yellowstone National Park concession workers have been fired after a live webcam caught them urinating into the Old Faithful geyser. Frank Lowe, one of the employees caught, commented “What is the big deal? This is what we do. We were told to keep peeing into the hole or else the tourists wouldn’t come, and the inn would close.”

Park spokesman Al Nash says a 23-year-old man on Tuesday was fined $750 and placed on three years of unsupervised probation for urinating, being off trail in a restricted area and taking items from the area. The man also was banned from Yellowstone for two years. The second employee’s case is pending.

Lowe was confused at this punishment claiming “How can I be on unsupervised probation and banned from the park at the same time? Does this mean I’m on unsupervised probation at home?”

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