Closed Caption

A few weeks back, wildfires tore through Southern California. FOX News channel, always eager to drum up unnecessary hysteria, reported that al Qaeda could be responsible for the blaze. Seriously. They did.

But unless you’re hearing-impaired, you probably missed this side of the story, reported on a California local affiliate station:

I’m assuming this is a typo—they probably just meant evacuating. After all, no other stations reported a throng of bukkake bandits ejaculating in the middle of the road. But even under the assumption that it was a mistake, put yourself in a deaf person’s shoes.

It’s Saturday afternoon and you flip on FOX News to see what’s happening in the world. Bad news. Terrorists hate our freedom so much that they’ve begun setting fires in the woods to smoke rich California residents out of their mansions. Frazzled, and overcome with fear, you change the channel. More coverage of the wildfires, but no terrorists. You’re momentarily relieved. You decide to make yourself a sandwich and have a cigarette. When you get back to the TV, the story has taken a terrible turn. Unruly citizens have taken to the streets—and they’re ejaculating everywhere.

This is bad news indeed. Someone should raise the terror threat level, you think. Do we have a color for this sort of thing? Where does ejaculation fall on the scale? Surely near the top. You’re head starts to spin, throbbing as you attempt to wrap your mind around this. You pass out, dropping your sandwich and cigarette in the process. Five minutes later, you wake up. Your house is engulfed in flames. You stumble outside. News choppers swirl overhead as three fire trucks tear around the corner. Now you’re on TV. Nothing makes sense, so you do the first thing that comes to mind. You pull down you pants, poised to ejaculate—and then, you stop—suddenly aware of the irony. Your lips curl into a furtive smile. “Life imitates art,” you suppose, just before you’re tackled to the ground, tased, and carted off to jail for indecent exposure.

And you thought closed-caption typos were harmless. Boy, were you wrong.