The Daily Habit: Weird News

 11:59 pm

Wife Carrying in Finland is a Sport- HELSINKI (AFP) – If you’re a worl traveler, you know that in order to learn a culture, you have to play that cultures’ sport, or at least that’s what Dhani Jones says.  There is some method to this madness because what some might call a sport in one part of the world, others could call something different somewhere else.  For example, in Scandanavia huge viking men lift heavy stones the size of dump trucks and stack them neatly for a few hundred bucks and some  vitamins, but in China it’s called a low-paying  job with percs.  In cental Africa  the stronget tribesman carve  war masks before battle, then beat each other senseless with huge sticks for some rice and a dried bladder full of goat urine, but in the Russia the KGB call it armed robbery by an unidentfiable male wearing panty hose over his head who stole some vodka and when they catch him they will kill him.  Over in Finland, muscle-bound olafs run really slow around a track with their wives strapped on their back in hopes of wearing a crown of gold and some no-no from the wife, but here in the USA we call that domestic assault and it usually results in a Protection From Abuse order.

Finland put an end to Estonia’s (yes there is a real country called Estonia Dilbert) 11-year reign and took gold and bronze medals last Saturday at the annual Wife-Carrying World Championships held in central Finland.  Taisto Miettinen, a true viking warrior from the looks of him, raced around a 275  yard course complete with two hurdles, a hop skotch course, and a plastic kiddie pool in 12 minutes and 2 seconds, while drinking a  half keg of beer and carrying  his giant wife on his back. ”A couple of times I have lost by 0.1 seconds and I have stumbled because my wife was much fatter then.   But I came hear to crush all of the girlymen who entered this contest which everyone knew was I was going to win before it started.  Our win tastes now really good, and so does this keg of Budweiser I’ve been carrying around all damned day. I’ll be back” Miettinen said in an Arnold Schwarzenegger sounding voice (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090704/od_afp/entertainmentfinlandoffbeat).

Although Estonia’s long chain of wins in wife-carrying was brought to an end, the event was full of surprises and lots of fun.  The Irish team got drunk and picked a fight with the Vietnamese team and their kung fu, though quite good, was no match for a pub full of licquored up O’Learys.  The Germans swapped wives with French and everybody was happy, until it came time to start filiming.  The race was inspired by the legend of a local thug and known ladies man who lived in a tree house and swung around on vines all day with some hot chick named Jane.  Legend says this jungle man snatched food and once in a while certain ladies from village bars, but only if they were drunk, and easy.  After it became a daily ritual, people started calling it a sport. So, ladies, hate the player, not the game.

 

~ by the115 on 07/08/2009.