Althouse: "Authorities say an 82-year-old man choked his 74-year-old girlfriend..."

May 29, 2009

"Authorities say an 82-year-old man choked his 74-year-old girlfriend..."

Oh, for the love of God...

"... because he was unhappy with the way she loaded a dishwasher."

When do we ever learn?

60 comments:

traditionalguy said...: Maybe it was self defense.; 5/29/09, 10:58 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: He buttoned her up.; 5/29/09, 10:58 AM
Joe said...: Those December/November romances never work.; 5/29/09, 10:59 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: She must have been one of those early career women who didn't spend enough time in the kitchen to learn the ropes.; 5/29/09, 11:01 AM
Treacle said...: I once withheld sex from Pedro because he refused to load the cutlery with the business-end up. For Pedro, that was as bad as being dead.; 5/29/09, 11:03 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Professor, that news site is a plethora of great stories. I especially like the one about the firefighter put on probation for taking some guy's severed foot from a car accident to train her body-recovery dog.

I mean you really can't make that shit up.; 5/29/09, 11:06 AM
Big Mike said...: @Treacle, you owe Pedro. Knife points go down. There have been a number of accidents where people have been injured -- and some children have died -- by slipping and falling onto a dishwasher rack and impaling themselves on a knife.; 5/29/09, 11:09 AM
rhhardin said...: You never hear about all the unchoked old women.; 5/29/09, 11:09 AM
former law student said...: that news site is a plethora of great stories.

You ain't just whistling Dixie.

How about the 15 year old boy whose teacher-girlfriend took him to Disney World? With his mom's blessing, no less.; 5/29/09, 11:10 AM
tim maguire said...: You can be pretty sure dementia was involved. Seriously, would a guy inclined to strangle people for petty reasons get to be 82 without bunches of jail time?; 5/29/09, 11:11 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: You know the more I look at that guy in the link I'm starting to wonder if that's hdhouse.

I'm just sayin.; 5/29/09, 11:13 AM
Bissage said...: When do we ever learn?

Mrs. Bissage would give me the stink-eye anytime I tried to put something in the dishwasher. Then she’d wait until I was done and then she’d rearrange everything while making that Harrrumph sound she makes so well.

So now I don’t even bother.

I rinse stuff off when I’m done with it and then I leave it in the sink.

So . . . when do we ever learn?

Oh, about 4 or 5 years ago I’d guess.; 5/29/09, 11:14 AM
Anonymous said...: Don't be judgemental. Perhaps he found her to be strident and tempermental.; 5/29/09, 11:15 AM
AllenS said...: "When do we ever learn?"

Evidently, you have to be older than 74.; 5/29/09, 11:16 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: You can be pretty sure dementia was involved. Seriously, would a guy inclined to strangle people for petty reasons get to be 82 without bunches of jail time?..

You're absolutely right. I am now convinced that is hdhouse.; 5/29/09, 11:16 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: How about the 15 year old boy whose teacher-girlfriend took him to Disney World? With his mom's blessing, no less..

Yeah but the whole hot for teacher thing is getting passe. It just doesn't raise eyebrows anymore.

But stealing someone's severed foot to train your dog? That's some funny shit. Well not for the guy who lost his foot but you know what I mean.; 5/29/09, 11:19 AM
Paul said...: I think tim maguire is onto something. It's possible the guy is just an aggressive old goat. But at his age, the possibility of undiagnosed Alzheimer's Disease shouldn't be discounted. From the Wikipedia entry on A.D.: "As the disease advances, symptoms [can] include confusion, irritability and aggression, mood swings.... AD develops for an indeterminate period of time before becoming fully apparent, and it can progress undiagnosed for years."; 5/29/09, 11:21 AM
Ralph L said...: So romantic to hear about passionate young lovers.
If Meade doesn't have a TV, does he not have a dishwasher?; 5/29/09, 11:35 AM
David said...: The firefighter who took the severed foot to train her dog was a woman.

I wonder how the dog reacted?; 5/29/09, 11:36 AM
TigerHawk said...: That really is a silly reason to choke somebody. It is not as though she rolled his socks the wrong way, or anything.; 5/29/09, 11:36 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: The firefighter who took the severed foot to train her dog was a woman.

I wonder how the dog reacted?.

Well if the dog was well trained he probably brought it to the guy who lost it.

Well I gotta go. I have to sign the closing papers on the condo I bought in the 7th level of hell ;-); 5/29/09, 11:43 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/29/09, 11:49 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: When do we ever learn?

Yeah, really. By 74 you should know how to load a dishwasher.; 5/29/09, 11:50 AM
blogless said...: Mrs. Bissage would give me the stink-eye anytime I tried to put something in the dishwasher. Then she’d wait until I was done and then she’d rearrange everything while making that Harrrumph sound she makes so well.It's the universal stink-eye used when guys try to get out of dishwasher loading duties by placing one plate diagonally on the bottom tier so that nothing else will fit in.

We're on to you.; 5/29/09, 11:53 AM
former law student said...: I have to sign the closing papers on the condo I bought

No sensible person should ever buy a condo. It combines the worst aspects of both home ownership and apartment living, because one shares sound-transmitting walls and ceilings with strangers, yet must fix his own drippy faucets, stopped-up toilets, and ice-melting refrigerators. To top it off, one must pay monthly homeowner he association fees for things might never decide to pay for on his own.; 5/29/09, 11:54 AM
Wince said...: What the article unfairly omitted was that the "dishwasher" in this case was a 17 year-old Cuban boy named Enrico.

:); 5/29/09, 11:58 AM
ricpic said...: Detergent goes in first. Then clothes. Then detergent on top. Any deviation from that rule WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!; 5/29/09, 11:58 AM
ricpic said...: Oh. This was a dishwasher, not a clothes-washer? Nevermind.; 5/29/09, 12:00 PM
Original Mike said...: When do we ever learn?Sad as this story is, I don't know what it is that we haven't learned.

I guess it's the guy who hasn't learned yet? If that's it, not sure it's fair to the rest of us to say we.; 5/29/09, 12:01 PM
Michael Haz said...: There should be a mandatory three day waiting period in order to carry a loaded dishwasher.; 5/29/09, 12:13 PM
tim maguire said...: Looking at a picture of the guy, I'm reminded of Eddie Murphy's line from 48 Hours, "You have a girlfriend? The generosity of women never ceases to amaze me."; 5/29/09, 12:16 PM
The Dude said...: Unless dude was going to have his foot reattached, he was through with it anyway. Train the dog, have a ball. What, he wasn't through with that yet? My bad...; 5/29/09, 12:24 PM
dbp said...: There is good news and bad news: It is good, but kind of pathetic news is that he is too weak to choke his girlfriend to death.

The bad news is that the old guy has so lost his marbles, that he doesn't know common etiquette: The owner of the home gets final say on how the dishwasher is loaded!; 5/29/09, 12:26 PM
bearbee said...: Dememtia and/or meds combination screwing him up.

Any other than recent history of aggression?; 5/29/09, 12:27 PM
Kirby Olson said...: The poet Joanne Kyger reports in her diary Strange Moon that the poet Gary Snyder bashed her head into a table (necessitating stitches) while they were living in Japan. She had refused to even DO the dishes, though.; 5/29/09, 12:29 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: "When do we ever learn?"

In other words, when did you stop beating your wife?; 5/29/09, 12:30 PM
Joaquin said...: Sounds like she had it coming.; 5/29/09, 12:56 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Wonder if he liked her coffee.; 5/29/09, 1:09 PM
Anonymous said...: What's the country coming to when you can't throttle a broad for bein' a slob?

Sheesh, next thing you know they'll want the vote.; 5/29/09, 1:15 PM
save_the_rustbelt said...: I just showed this to my wife (aka the world's greatest nurse) before she left for a shift at the nursing home.

It seems last week she had to wrestle a knife from an old lady who was going to "cut the heart out" of some who old geezer who talked too much at the dinner table.

On a more serious note, Alzheimers patient seem to kill several roommates every year in US nursing homes.; 5/29/09, 1:32 PM
Meade said...: Ralph said...
"If Meade doesn't have a TV, does he not have a dishwasher?"

Ralph: I do have a dishwasher and I'm totally easy-going about how other people load it.

But let's assume Althouse, at 72, decides to betray her marriage vows to me by taking an 82 year-old boyfriend-lover.

And let's further imagine that he threatens to do harm to her for the way she loads a dishwasher.

I'll kick his feeble little chokey ass!; 5/29/09, 1:41 PM
TitusNippyTucky said...: I don't understand how someone can be angry and do violence to another person.

I never get angry and I could never hurt anyone. Physcially or really emotionally. I don't have it in my system.

I am such a good person.

I also have a great set of guns..arms not real guns.; 5/29/09, 2:03 PM
BJK said...: When do we ever learn?
Hopefully, by the time we turn 83 (in captivity, as necessary).; 5/29/09, 2:25 PM
Ralph L said...: I'm totally easy-going about how other people load it.
Let's hope she feels the same way.

My brother has done the loading for 20 odd years because he doesn't like the way his wife does it. She may have tricked him into it, because he hated doing it as a kid.; 5/29/09, 2:35 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: When do we ever learn?

Absolutely. The plastic items do NOT go in the bottom rack, we have already ruined a Texasware bowl and melted some measuring cups. The every day wine glasses must be inserted into the proper holders on the top rack and the crystal hand washed.

And DO NOT EVER EVER put my vintage Fiesta Ware in the diswasher it tends to chip the edges of the bowls and plates.

Not that I would choke anyone to death over such things. I can do the Mrs. Bissage Harrrumph fairly well too.; 5/29/09, 3:02 PM
Jeremy said...: Personally I try to never use the dishwasher, not because I do a better job, but because I hate to unload the damn thing.

My wife on occasion has threatened me over my loading technique.

As for the 82 year old, I commend him for having a girlfriend.; 5/29/09, 3:54 PM
dbp said...: In our home we have a rule about things that are not "dishwasher safe".

If it will be ruined by the dishwasher, we didn't want it anyway.

There are exceptions of course, but they are few.; 5/29/09, 4:02 PM
PatHMV said...: Fiesta Ware, DBQ? Got some sort of death wish or something? Or just trying to do some homemade irradiation treatments on the food? ;-); 5/29/09, 4:22 PM
A.W. said...: The more depressing thing isn't an older person abusing a woman. I mean that can be just a reflection of a passing attitude that hasn't quite died out yet.

its the younger generation justifying what Chris Brown did to Rhianna (sp?). i saw an article at the time with a shockingly large number of teenagers thinking what he did was right.

Sigh.; 5/29/09, 4:36 PM
Ralph L said...: They've been taught to be transgressive. Smoking is cool because everyone hates it.

Strangling 'til unconscious was an older attitude? On what planet?; 5/29/09, 5:27 PM
Penny said...: Two old guys were living out the rest of their lives in a nursing home around here. They had Alzheimer's, but despite that had become best friends and spent most of their waking time together reliving old war memories, according to staff and family members. They went to battle together one day, and only one survived.

I hope they hurry with the cure.; 5/29/09, 5:39 PM
Ralph L said...: Your keyboard, to GlaxoSmithBarney's ear, Penny.; 5/29/09, 6:21 PM
Penny said...: I know people love to put down pharmaceutical companies, but research is an expensive arena with an uncertain outcome. They take big risks for big rewards, and I for one applaud them.

Has Glaxo come up with something for Alzheimer's?; 5/29/09, 6:39 PM
Ralph L said...: I've no idea, I just wanted a "g" sound, and added SmithBarney for fun (they were a brokerage house).

What's annoying is that because all the other rich countries have price controls, we Americans get to pay most of the development costs.; 5/29/09, 7:13 PM
Jen said...: . . .aaaaannnnnd. As I was saying yesterday. . . . .
Women don't marry for money. We marry because we weren't thinking clearly.; 5/29/09, 9:42 PM
Sorin said...: Control freaks need to hook up with control freaks and have a smack down! The guy is an idiot. He should have been happy that he did not have to load the washer. There is no accounting for taste in this age. This is for all the women out there,ditch any man that abuses you. You can do better.
Of course, if you are a guy and she does not like the way that you do laundry, the dishes, or clean the bathroom, smile and let her do
it. Heh.; 5/29/09, 10:26 PM
DADvocate said...: When do we ever learn?

To learn how to load the dishwasher properly?; 5/30/09, 8:27 PM
kentuckyliz said...: Choking is when you get a piece of food stuck in your throat and need someone to perform the Heimlich maneuver on you so you can breathe again.

STRANGLING is when you wrap your hands around someone's throat and squeeze to cut off their air.

Why are we so damned polite with our language when it comes to domestic violence?

Get it right.

The guy is clearly deranged and demented with old age and should be locked up in a nursing home and medicated. Either that or he needs to be a greeter at Wal-Mart.; 5/31/09, 12:02 PM
kentuckyliz said...: Of course they post a pic of sad grandpa but not the woman with her injured body after her bruises ripen. The finger marks around her neck, her red eyes from the patychial hemorrhaging, the scratches on her neck where she tried clawing his hands off her, the marks on her body where he punched and kicked her.

Ah yes, very funny, Althouse.

Glad the crowd is enjoying this one.; 5/31/09, 12:10 PM
kentuckyliz said...: When do we ever learn what?

That strangling someone should only happen for a GOOD reason?

Because domestic abuse is so rational, donchaknow.

OMG did you listen to the 911 call that was linked to the story? Truly frightening.

Dumb dispatcher: "Why did he do this to you?" DUMB DUMB DUMB

Terrified old lady locked herself in the bedroom and he's already beaten her, and he's pounding on the locked door, and the lady tells the dispatcher to have the officers take his gun away, and the dispatcher mishears her, and says he's taking your phone away? The dispatcher totally misses the fact that he has a gun. The woman is in fear for her life. He's already tried to kill me and he wrapped his hands around my neck and choked me almost to death, and he's going to come back and kill me for calling the police, and my leg is bleeding and I need stitches.

The guy had hit her before, at the racetrack, and she called security and had him arrested.

He wanted her to live with him to take care of him after he had surgery.

The woman is terrified. My neck is swollen and bruised and he's tried to kill me before, he's choked me before.

I need am ambulance because I'm all beat up and my neck's swollen out about three inches. Please send an ambulance.

I have heart trouble and I took a nitroglycerine and I have another one in my mouth now.

Ma'am, you can go outside the bedroom now, the police have him now.

_____________

Well that was amusing!; 5/31/09, 12:25 PM