Milwaukee News of the Weird

Yes!

Milwaukee Man Sues Makers of Brut After Cologne Ignites on Camping Trip

According to court filings, Lewitzke was burned while camping with family members on Memorial Day in 2004 in Wisconsin Dells, a popular resort area outside of Madison.

He washed and shaved in a bathhouse on the camp grounds and applied Brut lotion to his face, neck and chest with his hands. He also used the aerosol deodorant. He then went to a fire pit to cook breakfast.

His face, neck and chest ignited while he was starting the cooking fire, his lawsuit says.

Lewitzke's attorney, Michael Hanrahan, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that his client suffered burns on 30 percent of his body and underwent three skin grafts.

He claims in court documents that the Burt products and their packaging were the direct cause of Lewitzke's injuries and were defective because they were "unreasonably dangerous." The suit also says the products' labeling was unsafe because it should have warned about the danger of fires, and the manufacturers should have tried to minimize that risk.

Brut's manufacturers and companies selling the products should be held liable for Lewitzke's injuries, medical expenses, and the pain and disability he has suffered, the lawsuit argues.

I can't decide which part of this article is funniest:

1. Someone over the age of 13 wearing Brut! Seriously, any adult man who wants to smell like a jr. high boys' locker room might be a danger to society)
2. Someone blaming WalMart for not telling them alcohol is flammable. Back to the jr high boys...doesn't everyone try to set aerosols and other shit on fire at that age, or was it just me?
3. The word "bathhouse."
4. My friend Chele nominated "a lawyer actually took this case", but that's not funny, that's just sad.
   

The man wasn't just standing around with marshmallows when he was burned; he was starting a fire. Any halfway clever lawyer should hit that during discovery--procedure, source of ignition, accelerants--and it's QED.



Unrelated "I love this city" moment today--was walking out of work on N. Teutonia this afternoon with a friend and we saw a bowling ball lying in that strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. There's no lanes anywhere near work; every day we see broken glass, bits of crushed cars, snarled strands of hair extensions, beer cans, the occasional children's toy no one cares enough to go back to look for, etc, etc, but this is the first bowling ball. Only in Milwaukee.