# Magnum Opus

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-opus/9759>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 5, 2000, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-opus/9759 "2000-04-05T14:30:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Scott\_the\_Deviant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3e96dc/32.png) [@Scott\_the\_Deviant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_the_Deviant)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2000, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-opus/9759/1 "2000-04-05T14:30:00Z")

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I hate to bother you with such obvious trash, but I am having some difficulty convincing my manufacturing engineer that things that he reads on alt.urban.folklore bear the same relationship to truth as soap operas have with wisdom in personal relationships.

He is convinced that the story of some oaf named Ronald Opus is truth. The basic facts are:

\*Ronald Opus jumps off a roof of a 15 story bldg.  
\*He is saved from death by a cargo net at the 9th floor.  
\*He is killed on the way down by a shotgun blast from a floor greater than 9, less than 15  
\*The shotgun was fired by his father, who gestures frequently with an empty shotgun  
\*Ronald Opus had, in fact, loaded the shotgun to facilitate the death of his mother.

While I find irony fairly abundant in life, this overload tends to actuate my BS-meter and throw the needle into the red. Can you verify the truth or falsity of this story, and put my engineer out of the pain of his ignorance?

–Scott, seeker after truth

* * *

Just for the record, you can’t get into the opera with a lacrosse stick and a sackful of rats.

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2000, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-opus/9759/2 "2000-04-05T14:38:00Z")

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Bzzzzt!

Go to [http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/opus.htm](http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/opus.htm)]1994’s Most Bizarre Suicide.

That’s at [http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/opus.htm](http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/opus.htm)  
if the link screws up.

* * *

Tom~

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2000, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-opus/9759/3 "2000-04-05T14:39:00Z")

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I knew that didn’t look right. (The link does work.)