Today I witnessed what may have been a Darwinian moment

So I'm driving along a road that runs between a couple of shopping districts near where I live, when I happen to glance at an older gentleman who was about to trim the edge of his lawn.  We have these green strips between the foot path and the road that we call "nature strips" here in Australia, and he was standing just on the road edge and getting ready to do a little trimming along the bit where the grass looked like it was attempting to make a break for the other side before the owner notices...
Yeah!  Good luck!  If you've ever actually tried to watch grass grow you'd know that unless it's some super advanced mutant strain of lawn, that it'll lose that race every time...  where was I?

Right, so the old guy has this electrical cord slung over the top of a fence which stands about 5 or 6 feet high, presumably to create a barrier to the noise and light from the busy road out front... either that or he's tried to build a fort.  So, in this guy's hands, and I kid you not, was an electric circular saw!! I couldn't believe my eyes when I actually saw the guy bending over to line the saw up with the edge of the lawn, and the blade started to turn!  Naturally I was left stunned, and after laughing and throwing out an "OMG, I don't believe it", my wife asks me what's wrong.  It's at this point that I remember to return my concentration to my driving, and sad to say I did not see what happened next. I do recall that the old codger was wearing a singlet, a pair of shorts, and had no ear or eye protection, no gloves, and no body armor which quite frankly I figure he'd be needing with what he was about to do.

If that silly old bugger managed to survive, then he's probably part cat and has managed to use one of those many lives to dodge a fairly gruesome and predictable end.  On the other hand, if I read in the news about an idiot who cut of his own leg and bled to death, then I will feel compelled to nominate him for a Darwin Award.

Now, apart from the obvious embellishment on my part, the story of the old guy with his circular saw as an edge trimmer is entirely true. As to the moral of this story:

• Kids believe they're immortal, will do stupid stuff and live to tell the tale while attaining the adulation of their peers,
• Adults will freak out about safety, buy a Prius because it's a safe car and good for the environment, then somehow manage to wrap it around a tree and end up in a coma.
• Old cowboys will have had the time to learn that they are not actually immortal, will have forgotten what it was like to worry about their safety and how they meddled in everyone else's, and with their few remaining brain cells that still maintain a rudimentary connection to other parts of their brains will somehow devise new and inventive ways to abuse power tools to the shock, horror, and amusement of everyone else.
• And the piece-d'resistance? Those Darwin Awards guys have it all wrong, because it's likely that the crazy old farts will already have a whole passel of kids and grand-kids to carry forth their genes, and thus we will never truly see Natural Selection actually culling the genetically stupid from our "herd". Instead we'll be left with the genetically stupid and unbelievably lucky making up the vast majority of our numbers in the future.  As for all those Intelligent Design believers out there, heaven help us if you're right, but at least we'll all die laughing with the knowledge that God actually has a sense of humor!