When told by airport security personnel that the two-pints of vodka in your luggage needs to be thrown out in order to board your plane, the normal person might respond by offering a few meager words of protest before resigning to buy a new bottle after landing. The typical hardened alcoholic, on the other hand, might instead decide to get heartily sloshed on miniature bottles of Southern Comfort until passing out in the lavatory.
Then there’s this 64-year-old German man, who decided he was going to board the plane and have his vodka too. When told to empty his booze at the security checkpoint at the Nuremberg airport in Germany, the man did just that . . . into his mouth. He stood there and chugged nearly two full pints of vodka before losing all motor function and collapsing of alcohol poisoning. Doctors expect him to make a full recovery, to which the man replied, “Bllaaaaagggghhhhhh . . . Have we landed yet, Captain?” — Jared Klaus
This article appears in Dec 12-18, 2007.