SELBTALES: Numbnuts Award of the Week

(This blog was originally written on May 21st, 2008)

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to my blog, and to this edition of “Numbnuts Award of the Week.” This week’s award goes to a very deserving candidate. He is a former colleague of mine here, who was recently let go for riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Hardly a numbnuts move, you might think. Completely agree. I mean, obviously one should wear a helmet, but who among us has never in their lives done that? No, this would hardly qualify someone for the Numbnuts Award of the Week. What’s even more bullshit is that they fired him for it. Performance record notwithstanding, I would also tend to disagree with the Peace Corps on that particular judgment call. But there’s a new CD (country director) in country, maybe he wanted to make an example out of someone. Whatever.

What makes this young man the winner is the way in which he saw fit to leave country. It’s come to my attention that upon receiving news of his dismissal, the guy went to Diego, the nearest big city, while in transit to the capital to be processed. So while he was staying at the Peace Corps house is Diego, there was a “break-in.” The would-be thief broke in, ruffled a good many bags and the like, and proceeded to steal one phone, and one camera, from guess who’s bag… That’s right; Numbnuts’. So he left country in a huff claiming some bogus story about theft and how his termination was bullshit.

Naturally, back in Diego, all the people whose things had been gone through by the “thief” wanted answers, and duly contacted the Peace Corps security office to report the incident. They were struck, very unsurprisingly, by the fact that many of the ruffled bags had large sums of cash money left untouched by the perp. So, after some *extremely* basic investigation work by the Peace Corps security they found Numbnuts’ phone AND camera for sale at the local bizarre in the town where he had served before leaving. So what happened is, Numbnuts, upon learning he was fired, actually sold his own stuff in his local market in some idiotic, half-assed scheme to claim it later as stolen property to a travel insurance company he had employed. This is why you get the Selbtales Numbnuts Award of the Week, Numbnuts.

Seriously people, this has got to make you wonder what kind of screening process Peace Corps has set up in Washington, that these types are actually let in and brought on. I mean if it’s this jackass and his dumbass camera scheme this week, what will it be next week? Conning the doctor for unnecessary Perkadan instead of paying the $1.50 at the pharmacy down the street? Or if we leave it at this level, why don’t we just stop fooling ourselves and change the complimentary subscription from Newsweek to the New York Post? It’s ridiculous. At the very least, this week’s award recipient is now back in America, comfortably in his element, where there’s a numbnuts around every corner.