The Largest Food Spills Of the Relatively Recent Past
Some people are really into sports. Others religiously follow movie news, trying to determine the Best Picture Oscar winner even before the director's decided on their final cut. Some insane folks even set reminders on their calendar to alert them when the latest "Twilight" fan fiction has been released. People have weird obsessions, is the point. And mine is stories about highway food spills.
So last week when I stumbled onto this story about 770 pounds of eggs spilling on a Chinese highway -- leading to, as they perfectly put it, a "mad scramble" for free eggs -- it put a little giddy-up in my step and made me want to put together a list of other spills that have taken place over the past year-and-change. Here are six of my favorite:
Los Angeles: Dog Food
Traffic was even more stop-and-stop-some-more last April on our own 10 freeway after 19,000 pounds of dog food spilled out of a big rig near West Covina during rush hour. LA Weekly's advice for how to clean up the mess: "[U]nleash the hungry tenants of the nearby Baldwin Park Animal Shelter on the spill. Two birds, one stone!"
Maryland: Beer
The Internet was outraged last July after the news started to trickle -- or, I guess, gush -- out of Frederick, Maryland that a tractor-trailer full of delicious, always delicious, beer spilled its contents onto the road. (Terrible joke alert.) Now that's what I call a party foul! Get it? Get it! Guys? Where are you going?
Poland: Sardines
You know those times when you've finished packing the car for a long road trip, and you're on the road, maybe two blocks away, and you just have that aching feeling that you left something behind but you can't quite put your finger on what it is? Usually, it's something inconsequential, like a toothbrush or some floss, which you can just pick up along the way. But sometimes, it's something pretty big. Sometimes, it's forgetting to close the trunk, leading to 24 tons of sardines spilled onto the highway.
Indiana: Ice Cream
I scream! You scream! We all scream ... because there's a truck carrying 40,000 pounds of Edy's ice cream that's about to tip over on its side!
New York: Greek Yogurt
Next time you're in the grocery store, head into the dairy section and pick up a container of Chobani Greek Yogurt. Any flavor will do. If you have the smaller size in your hand, that's about 6 ounces worth of yogurt right there. Now, try to imagine 95,760 of those containers, all littered about a highway, and you'll sort of picture what it was like when 36,000 pounds of it spilled in New York last May.
Ohio: Syrup
We've all heard the complaints about traffic being "slow as molasses," but this is ridic... oh, even I can't finish that terrible intro to a story about a bunch of maple syrup spilling in Ohio last June. Contrary to what this article would have you believe, I have some humor standards.
