Can't Get Those Amputees Off My Mind.....

....so I remember hearing about this a couple years ago, and was thinking of it again during the middle of a particularly suck-ass workday. From Reuters:

A disabled Mississippi man said he was planning to amputate his feet with a home-made guillotine and broadcast the procedure live on the Internet to raise money for new prosthetic legs.

Paul Morgan, a 33-year-old student who was paralyzed below the knees after falling out of a truck in 1986, seized upon the idea after his insurance company refused to pay to have his lower legs amputated and fitted with titanium prosthetic devices.

The sane among you might be asking "Why on earth would my pharmacist be thinking of a lunatic in Mississippi who wants to cut off his feet while he's filling my prescription?" Fair enough question, with a simple answer. I hate you, remember? And when I originally heard about this guy's plan I remember doing the math with the number of subscribers he was hoping to get and realizing it would have grossed about $2 million bucks, enough to throw somewhere at 5% interest, buy a prosthesis, never have to see you or any other freaky customer ever again, and have $100,000k to work with every year. (Unfortunately it didn't work out for the guy from Mississippi. According to my Google search just now on the topic, only about 20 people signed up. No word on if his insurance company ever changed it's mind.)


And as evidence that my plan was feasible I submit this, from ABC News:

Feb. 20, 2005 — In June 2003, Army Capt. David Rozelle lost his right foot in a land mine explosion in Iraq.

After intensive physical therapy, watching the birth of his son and even participating in the New York City Marathon, Rozelle is returning to the war zone as commander of an armored cavalry troop. He'll be the first amputee in recent military history to return to the battlefield where he was injured.

So I'm thinking there's a lot of upside potential to this amputation business. Not only could it get me out of a lifetime of customer hell, maybe we could start some sort of proactive amputation of soldiers before they were deployed to one of Mr. Bush's current or future wars. It would make them smaller targets, send battlefield casualty rates through the floor, and save the country millions I bet. Better living through fewer limbs.....