Man on fire

Faithful readers of this blog will recall my rant on Monday about a bunch of Hungarians who got together to set the world record for “the highest number of people drawing simultaneously.”

That was mildly eccentric. This other world record is flat-out lunatic.

And that would be, of course, the record for the most people on fire simultaneously.

No, that is not a misprint. On Saturday, 17 people in Ohio will try to carve out a place in history by becoming the largest number of people performing a full body burn simultaneously.

And if you can believe this, the fun-fest was co-organized by the Ohio Burn Unit.

Ouch. This sounds like a reaaallly bad idea, but one news account says reassuringly about the group, “They have all practiced and been set on fire individually over the past 8 months in preparation for this.”

Uh, exactly how to you practice being set on fire? On second thought, I don’t want to know. I would surmise that their favorite movie is, "Up in Smoke."

I wish them luck, I guess. Their prize ought to include a free therapy session at the nearest psychiatric clinic.

… And by the way, this may seem harsh, but wasn’t the world record for the most people on fire simultaneously set in Dresden, Germany, on Feb. 13, 1945?