/ Mark Frauenfelder / 4:35 pm Thu Jul 7, 2011

Gentleman gets his hand stuck attempting to retrieve candy bar from gas tank

Snikkers I couldn't help but snicker when I read the news about a gentlemen who got his hand stuck in his car's gas tank when he tried to retrieve a candy bar he saw in there. Fortunately, firefighters swooped in like the 3 musketeers and twizzled his hand out. He is in good heath, save for a couple of small mounds on his finger (which are easily treated with the application of a bit o' honey).

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  2. Let me guess . . . his name was Reggie? What a Zero.

    And what Butterfinger let the candy bar get in there in the first place?

    The cops in Charleston Chew people out for Twix like that.

  3. Oh dear god.

    Well, thanks for the Chuckles. Now & Later when all the FANTASTIC candy bar puns roll in.

  4. This man was obviously an butterfingered airhead, but it did make me chuckle about him being a dum dum.

  5. All the fun aside, am I the only one asking WHY and HOW did this happen? Come on. This never said it was his car or not. Why would you look in the gas tank if you were taking the car to get the tire changed? I call BS. Fishy. Someone was putting sugar in the tank.

    2. I wonder myself.

      How in the world do you even SEE a candy bar in the gas tank? Was it floating up in the neck of the tank?

      Anyway, it’s not like a refrigerator, with a little elf that turns on the light for you.

  7. This is why i try to avoid driving the Hershey Highway. Are they quite certain it was even a candy bar?

  10. The previous commenters probably don’t have young children. I had a friend who ran an electronics repair shop. It was amazing how many sandwiches he extracted from VCR players (yes, this was a while ago).

    1. It does happen ;-)

      I particularly remember one customer who was *adamant* that her three-year-old would never touch the TV or video “because he knows he’s not allowed to”, and that he couldn’t possibly have broken her video recorder.

      Fair enough, I suppose, but she didn’t like it when I told her that this suggested that it was one of the grown-ups in the house who had posted a half-eaten Mars bar, a chewed Bob The Builder figure and four or five little Green Plastic Army Men through the flap.

  12. You got your gas tank in my chocolate. No, you got your peanut butter in my petrol!

  14. I actually had to go out to the garage and pull off one of the cars’ gas caps before posting, and all I can say is WTF? My hands aren’t particularly small (being in proportion with my somewhat largish self), but I can’t imagine anyone larger than a small child being able to even get part of their hand into the filler opening, much less enough to get it wedged inside! I mean, you’d have to get in there past the knuckles!

    This guy must be awfully small…

    1. pfff…reading FAIL… the article implies it was his fingers that were stuck. Much more reasonable.

  15. Cripes, it’s like a Kip Adotta song in here!

    “I said fix the damn thing and leave my private life out of it.”

  16. Whoever did this is a cad. Bury him up to his willy and wonka him until he wrigleys with pain.

  17. Now this goober will p’bly hire a fancy 5th Avenue lawyer and sue the car company for building a faulty whatchamacallit, hoping to score that big payday.

  19. It didn’t Take 5 to Jimmy that Baby Ruth outta there. SKOR! it was the Nerds Butterfingers and not his Whatchamacallit! still, the Snickers here will be Good n’ Plenty over your Sour Patch, Kid.

  23. “I couldn’t help but snicker…”

    Should be: “I couldn’t help but eat a Snickers…”

  26. There are vastly less options when it comes to candybar puns than the human mind will at first instinctively assume, despite the whimsical nature of their names. This becomes painfully evident once one begins the process of actually trying to synthesize a clever example from scratch. Once all the really good ones have been taken, the quality drops off exponentially. That’s MY excuse anyway.

    1. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. Accepting the perfectly adequate pun and being happy is better then waiting for Mr. Goodbar.

  27. One thing I always wondered: when did firemen become the de-facto getting-things-unstuck service? Cat in the tree? Send a fireman. Kid stuck halfway up a vending machine? Send a team of firemen. Is it because there aren’t enough fires keeping them busy?

  28. OOOHH… PIECE OF CANDY…. OHHH PIECE OF CANDY…. OOOOOH PIECE OF CANDY… OOOHH! PIECE OF CANDY! …OOOH PIECE OF CANDY!

  29. Heh heh. You’ve been waiting for something like this a while, huh, Mark? Had me in Chuckles.

  30. Is this article written in some code that I’m completely not getting? “Candy bar in the gas tank” indeed…

  31. Look, since you’re all willing to waste a big hunk of your time on these duds, why not see’s the opportunity and do s’more?

  32. Oh Henry ! Some people must be real Turtles to not understand puns ! You don’t have to be an Aero space engineer to figure out that the chocolate bars & Nut& Fruit bars are full of Sweet Maries that just love a Chuckle.

  34. He was lucky to Breakaway with only a few Mars – one spark and his hand would have burnt to a Krackle.

  35. Your website has been the homepage on all four of my home computers for my entire family for the last 5 years. After not only using the word “gentleman” to be passively racist, but also ignoring my comment about your choice of language, our family is no longer supporting your website. Perhaps you need better moderation, or to reconsider your attitude towards minorities. Goodbye, BB.

    1. Your website has been the homepage on all four of my home computers for my entire family for the last 5 years. After not only using the word “gentleman” to be passively racist, but also ignoring my comment about your choice of language, our family is no longer supporting your website. Perhaps you need better moderation, or to reconsider your attitude towards minorities. Goodbye, BB.

      That’s fascinating, anonymous, and not just because you submitted it four times. If you were a regular BB reader, you would have noticed by now that BB in general and Mark in particular use the word ‘gentleman’ for most adult male humans, particularly since someone comments on the usage about once a week. I’m also surprised that after five years on four computers, this is the first time that you’ve felt compelled to make any kind of comment about anything.

      Good day, sir.

    2. Well that clinches it, I officially don’t understand a thing about this article. Or some of the people reading it.

      Its like some coded communication from a 1990s movie, where we’re supposed to learn the location of the secret rave from the seemlingly nonsensical comments.

    1. I said Good Day!

      Anyway, I think that “gentleman” has been devalued to the point where it is casually and routinely applied to just about anyone who’s not accused of rape or politics.

      I kind of felt bummed out for this guy, with the candy bar, because in the linked article, it comes across less like homer simpson trying to get in to a vending machine, and more like some poor guy who’s car has been fucked up by chocolate wielding vandals. I don’t think he was recovering the chocolate to eat it or anything.

  37. Also, how is using ‘gentleman’ racist at all? let alone passively so?

    people are weird. But, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t!

    1. Also, how is using ‘gentleman’ racist at all? let alone passively so?

      Clearly it must have something to do with Mark using the plural “gentlemen” instead of the singular “gentleman.”

      At first I thought it was an honest grammar mistake, but now I see that Mark must be referring to some race of people who all have multiple personality disorder. Possibly aliens.

  38. “He so happened to look in the gas tank. There was chocolate in there.”

    Maybe it’s just because it’s late, but for some reason this quote from the linked article strikes me as really beautiful, in a Dadaist poetry kind of way.

  39. “Gentleman”? I think not! A true gentleman would have his man-servant retrieve the errant confection.

  40. I’m caught Twix laughing at anon or joining in with the Bounty of puns, sometimes it’s too easy to push someones Buttons especially when they Revel in being Nutrageous, some folks just have a short Fuse.

  41. Today it seems that BoingBoing has been taken over by Slashdot, where none of the users bother to read the articles any more and take the summary at face value.

    All we need now is some hot grits – but I suppose Confused Racism Guy will do nicely instead.

  43. Why is this funny? Putting a candy bar in a gas tank is a way to totally destroy the engine of a car. It’s a common prank and an expensive act of vandalism. The man was trying to remove the candy in order to save himself the multi-thousand dollar expense of repairing the engine. Getting his hand stuck while trying to remove the candy adds insult to injury. It seems the poster and commenters are unaware that this person is a victim of vandalism, but in light of that all of the jokes seem very mean-spirited.

    1. not as mean spirited as someone who rains on a parade when they could just walk away from the keyboard, douche.

  44. Anon’s four computers may explode if he looks at the comments on the linked article. Actually, the first comment there was perfect: “Not going anywhere for a while…?”

    The article mentions repeatedly that he got his hand (not just fingers) caught – Mark’s short explanation said it all.

    “errant confection” – pretty sweet Sean…

  45. “someone removed the Snickers bar from the wrapper and jammed it in the tank”

    This guy is probably a bit clumsy, but wouldn’t you have tried to get that thing out? Don’t know what a Snickers dissolved in gas would do to my car’s fuel system, but don’t really feel like finding out either…

  46. Sure is Reddit in here.

    57 comments and only ONE person mentions the obvious? Gas tanks are made of iron, not glass. did this guy have x-ray vision or what?

    So I read the original post. It also uses “gas tank” to mean the receptacle for the gas pump where the cap screws on. That ain’t the tank, folks. The faucet on your sink is not the county water reservoir.

    Journalism FAIL

    Re-poster FAIL

    Oh, and I’m not allowed to refer to someone as a “gentleman” anymore, because it is only used to cover any sort of nasty opinion I may have toward said person, which a third party can easily distinguish?

    Commenter FAIL

    The only win ITT is Antinous with his swift and cutting refutation. As someone he has disemvoweled before, I am ambivalent, though.

  48. Someone else placed the candy in the tank, a way of ruining an engine. When the man tried to remove it, his hand was mangled. That’s funny? The article also explains the risk of an explosion while removing his hand. As a burn victim I can assure you that is not funny. Not one damn bit.
    I’ve always considered this online community to be both intelligent and compassionate. My mistake, apparently.

    As for the fellow who felt there was rasicm implied, I’d say the moderator’s responce was rather callous, whatever the facts might be. I’m seldom dissapointed in Boing Boing, but this time…hell, I’m almost ashamed to be here. Do I get a smarmy ‘Good Day Sir’ as well?

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