"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski , and his homosexual partner Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admittedfor emergency treatment after a fetching session had gone seriously wrong. "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual Kiki shouted out 'Armagedon," my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him." At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next, "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair severely burning his face,. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball." Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract. Send this story to a friend 1 The re-release of George Lucas' "Star Wars" over the raked in millions. "This came as a relief to Princess Leia who had fallen on hard times and was considering becoming a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers and Ocean Spray." (Joshua Sostrin) Says Paul Ecker, "Teenagers all over the country are asking the same question: Who's Mark Hamill?" The film was enhanced with even more special effects. "In a related move, Sweden will re-release Ingmar Bergman's films "enhanced with even more gloom,'" (Michael Edens) Send this story to a friend 2 Arizona: A company called "Guns For Hire" stages gunfights for Western movies, etc. One day, they received a call from a 47-year-old woman, who wanted to have her husband killed. She got 4-1/2 years in jail. Send this story to a friend 3
