I’m sorry, I just had to share this with you. Article is in Dutch, I’m not sure if there is a translation somewhere on the web, and sadly, no pictures. But funny as hell. Best part of the article:
Translation: “He didn’t wear a usual outfit, especially for this time of year”, was the logical observation of Van Doorn, who was helping a customer at the time. “In addition, he was holding a raw trout in his hand, out of which he occasionally took a bite. I asked him if he wasn’t cold, but he wasn’t”, told the salesman to the reporter.
Since few of you can read Dutch, I assume, I translated the full article for you.
Naked man with trout molests shoe salesman
AMSTERDAM - A shoe salesman from Weert was bitten in his arm this Wednesday, by a naked man with a trout in his hand. Meter controllers were abel to detain him until the police arrived to arrest him.
It must have been a bizarre image for Robert van Dooren, sales employee at Bob’s Adventure Store in Weert. A 25 year old inhabitant from the city parked his bike againt the store and came in, only dressed in a cap and a pair of shoes.
“He didn’t wear a usual outfit, especially for this time of year”, was the logical observation of Van Doorn, who was helping a customer at the time. “In addition, he was holding a raw trout in his hand, out of which he occasionally took a bite. I asked him if he wasn’t cold, but he wasn’t”, told the salesman to the reporter.
The shoe salesman informed two patrolling meter controllers about the visit of the skantly dressed man. “Maybe it was the uniforms, but now the man became irrate and started pulling one of the shelves.”
“Together with a controller and a customer we forced him to the ground. With climber’s rope around his neck we managed to subdue him, but he did bite me in my arm until it bled. You can still see the tooth marks.”
It turned out the man escaped a psychiatric institution. With a shot a doctor managed to calm the patient. He is now confined to a closed institution of a hospital, he has been charged.
That’s the second time this month!
No word on whether the escape mental patient performed a ceremonial fish slapping dance outside the store. By the way, I think the OP is a little inaccurate. A naked man did bite a shoe salesman, but he didn’t use the trout to molest the salesman. The trout was an innocent bystander.
It can’t object, it’s dead! The trout no more. It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet it’s maker! This is a late trout! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If the mental patient wasn’t holding it, it’d be pushing up the daisies! It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! THIS! IS AN EX-TROUT!
Unless the raw trout was actually alive. Come to think of it, re-reading your story, it’s not clear to whom the salesman was speaking when he asked ‘are you cold?’ He may have been addressing the trout, not the mental patient. The horror of being eaten alive in a shoe store by a near-nude madman as he molests a shoe clerk!
Much thanks to the OP for alerting us all to this story, and for his translation.
We could make like Lynne Truss [author of Eats Shoots and Leaves] and parse the living hell out of this story: to whom did the trout belong, and was the trout weaponized; and was it possible the naked man actually molested a shoe, with a [trout?] salesman standing nearby (as witness, presumably?).
I think the primary victim in this incident is the trout, who died, after all. Thus the naked man should be tried before a jury composed of the trout’s piscine peers who would decide whether the state’s case sinks or swims. You may think that sounds fishy and that I’m baiting you with a red herring, but I say it’s perfectly fin and proper and that the scales of justice demand nothing less.
Upon review, I also think the store clerk could’ve handled the situation more efficiently: instead of asking whether the man (or his trout) were cold, he should’ve informed the naked man that no foods or beverages were permitted within the store. Then the naked man, embarrassed by his inappropriate trout, would likely have excused himself and left the store (with his proverbial tail between his legs), to be apprehended by the authorities elsewhere, and the store clerk would’ve been spared that bite on his arm.
BTW, what do you suppose the medical authorities should be testing these men for first – HIV, salmonella, or rabies?
