Get your rimshots ready, here come the jokes:
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| Gives new meaning to the phrase "Make mine a Biggie." ? Detroit Lions |
Cullen, the Lions' first-year defensive line coach, was arrested twice in the last two weeks for driving-related offenses. One's a drunk driving charge in Dearborn, in which Cullen's BAC was measured at .12.
The other's for indecent and obscene conduct. This would be for an incident in which Cullen drove into a Wendy's drive-thru lane in his SUV, completely naked.
It's at least somewhat likely that you've heard of the Cullen incident. But you may not have read the interview with the Wendy's employee by The Detroit Free Press.
This is Pulitzer material. It contains some of the grandest examples of deadpan, comic understatement I've ever read (boldface mine):
...Wendy's shift manager Jethro Lett said he was working the second drive-thru window on Michigan Avenue near Telegraph when he heard startling news from the first window, where customers pay for their food. "The cashier alerted me," said Lett, 48. ".'A guy coming to your window is naked!'."
Lett, whose job was delivering food to drivers from the second window, said, "I was trying to be professional." ...
Because it was late, Lett had to tell the man to pull over to wait for his food to cook... Five minutes later, Lett brought the order out to the parked SUV. "He didn't say a word," Lett said. "I said, 'Here you go with your food, sir.'"...
Lett said Thursday that he was frustrated with police that night, who he felt weren't taking his complaint seriously. "All they kept saying is, 'Did he say anything, do anything?'-" Lett recalled. "I said, 'He don't have to say anything, he's butt naked!'"...
(Lett) said he was pleased to learn from a reporter Thursday that police arrested Cullen after the episode. But Lett said the whole experience was a bit traumatic, especially since he had only recently begun working out in the suburbs.
"They brought me all the way out to Dearborn, and this is where the freak show's at," he said.
Cullen attempted to quash the, oh shall we say, complicated public relations predicament by releasing a statement:
And with that solemn vow, a wave of calm reassurance falls over the Motor City. Especially Dearborn, whose long nightmare would be over, except that it's still Dearborn. But I do have one sorta minor, maybe rhetorical question about Mr. Cullen's general life approach, and I think it's one we're all asking ourselves, in the event that, God forbid, this happens to us at some point in our lives.
That question is this: What "valuable lesson" is there that can only be learned by driving your vehicle by a fast-food service window while naked?
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| Never Supersized anything. ? NBC |
You know what? If by chance I have yet to learn the "valuable lesson" Mr. Cullen apparently learned the other evening in Dearborn, I think I'm going to wait awhile before seeking the answer this lesson provides. I kinda think Cullen is taking different elective courses than me. I'll stick with home ec or woodshop. Cullen can keep on taking the class about the perils of ordering food in the nude.
Our good friend Sean at the excellent SB Nation Lions blog, "Pride of Detroit", covers this story as well. Which is good, because for a minute there it seemed like nothing was covering Cullen. Ba-BING!
I love it when the stories write themselves. Just love it.