Minnesota Man Admits Driving Drunk In His Custom La-Z-Boy Recliner
By Heneage
Published: November 03, 2009
Published: November 03, 2009
I found this to be hilarious for some reason – especially the pictures of the pimped-out recliner and the man driving it. The only thing this chair is missing is a toilet.
“Deputy Police Chief Troy Foucault said the chair is “quite decked out.” Along with the stereo and cup holders, it is powered by a converted lawnmower with a Briggs & Stratton engine, a steering wheel, headlights and a power antenna. Foucault estimated that the La-Z-Boy can top out at 15 to 20 miles per hour. A National Hot Rod Association sticker adorns the headrest.”
Let me tell you a little something about my people: The upper Midwestern dude LOVES to “soup up” inappropriate things with a motor,paint flames on the side, then drive it down the street drunk. And this was an issue back when I was a kid and all the jobs hadn’t disappeared yet. Current Unemployment rates guarantee to keep these stories rolling along (no pun intended).
The headlights are a nice touch, although I’m not sure about that plywood seat.
@LawyerGay: I’m pretty sure he had a cushion custom-molded to the shape of his ass. It’s removable, though – so he can transfer it to his pick-up truck / bass boat / ice-fishing house.
What is this country coming to when a man can’t drive his own La-Z-Boy in public while having an ice cold beer without being hassled by the man? Someone needs to alert Glenn Beck.
Chair the road!
People are starving. People are dying. People are losing homes and jobs. But this guy found the time to trick out a recliner, motorize it, and end up getting a DUI for operating it.
Only in America.
Is that a gyno stirrup in front? Is that to hold his huge balls?
It’s like the spirit of Henry Ford is still alive and well in the Midwest.
FoMo, we have Jersey dudes who do this too. I think it is a universal American dude thing, this need to tinker and trick out, then consume adult beverages and rev up.
This, though? “Foucault estimated that the La-Z-Boy can top out at 15 to 20 miles per hour. A National Hot Rod Association sticker adorns the headrest.” That is a student of deconstructive postmod lit’s wet dream. Michel himself would be shaking with frissons of delight.
@Bookish: Yes, the poor man has been disciplined and punished for daring to break the existing power-knowledge construct. Society will not stand for motorized bar-stools!
@BL: I guess I was thinking of the other Focault, with my initial reaction: “Dude should’ve stuck with pendulums.”
@Hen: Woot, somebody went to collij!
@Bookish: I was an IR major. Ask me how to do long division or balance an equation and you’ll get a blank stare. Ask me how 2,000 years of selective western discourses have shaped our world view and modern politics, and I can talk for hours.
I am marginally employable.
@BOOKISHLOOKISH: Using Jersey is an unfair yardstick, because every kind of weirdness exists in The Garden State.
@Hen: Ah, IR–that’s kids’ stuff! English major with a healthy dose of ’80s lit crit and a linguistics minor. Deeply employable nonetheless, just as you are.
@Nef: We are a state literally jam-packed with goodness. What stretches out over the horizon of other states changes with us from town to town, block to block. You can’t get bored here. You need to pop a Ritalin to drive from Belleville to Jersey City.
Trying to explain “Jersey miles” to someone not from here? That’s the theme of my novel. Stay tuned.
@BL: I’m deeply envious that you got here before I did and made the first Foucault joke.
@MP: Slow office today.
@BOOKISHLOOKISH: We may be jam-packed with goodness, but we are also overflowing with craziness. Just look at the last few Governors we’ve had.
@Forward: It’s true. From my home state of Ohio I bring you the “Go-Kouch” and the much less fancy motorized barstool:
@LG: It’s hard to tell from that photo, but the cushion is propped up in front of it. I saw a picture of it from a different angle last week.
@Gerbils: That is some sort of drag-racing steering dohickey, I’m told. Fancy!
Drive it like you stole it!
@Vox: Browns fans will do anything! love the barstool. You could pull off a sweet dine and dash at some greasy spoon, if you were so inclined.
BREAKING NEWS ALERT:
Now that a corporate publicity concern has been satisfied, the police auction has resumed of the souped-up motorized recliner that was confiscated because the owner was extremely drunk when he crashed outside a bar in Proctor, Minn.
The it’s-not-a-La-Z-Boy chair has drawn 41 bids on eBay as of 1:45 p.m. today, with an offer of $5,300 leading the way. Bidding ends Thursday.
The bust on Aug. 31, 2008, and the subsequent auction have attracted international media attention and drove eBay bidding for the chair past $40,000. But then the bidding was briefly put in park and had to start all over again.
Proctor police were 11 hours shy of ending its five-day auction when the ad was suddenly yanked, apparently because it was referred to as a La-Z-Boy chair, and it’s not. And that didn’t sit with the folks at La-Z-Boy, who faxed a complaint to the police chief about the use of the trademarked name and apparently filed a complaint with eBay.
This is all fine and well, but please do not forget that it was in Kansas where the woman lived on a toilet seat for two years.
When I was like 12, my friends in the neighborhood and I decided that we were going to build a go-cart from scratch. We got wheels and an engine from a lawnmower, wood for a frame, metal rods for axles, a steering wheel from unknown origins and then we realized that we had no idea how to put any of this crap together to make it run. We couldn’t even get the engine started. We had no plans for breaks either.
We eventually made a catapult. Apparently our level of technology had only reached that of the Ancient Romans. We were nowhere close to the Industrial Revolution.
@Chill: did you catapult the non-functional engine? axles? friends? If so, we should hang out.
@Chill: true story, I just bought my business partner a trebuchet to assemble. It looks freakin’ awesome, but it looks very challenging to assemble. Can I call you if he gets stuck?
@Frack (because I like to misspell your name):
Actually, we did have the ability to put the thing on wheels so we kept the axles. A trebuchet might be a little advanced for me, but I’ll give it a look.
@Chill: ha! love the call back, and, ok. If I get into a pickle, I’ll call. It’s still 9-1-1, right?
@VP: Thanks for providing the photo evidence.