Emergency deflation team called for community safety
SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI – A routine cosmetic enhancement procedure turned into a nightmare of epic proportions yesterday when local amateur inventor Dr. Melvin Buttsworth’s experimental buttock inflation device malfunctioned, sending 34-year-old volunteer test subject Randy Bounceman careening through downtown Springfield like a human pinball for over three hours.
The chaos began at approximately 2:30 PM when Buttsworth, who operates out of a converted garage laboratory behind Manny’s Auto Parts, was conducting what he called “revolutionary gluteal enhancement trials” on Bounceman, a desperate customer seeking to impress his ex-girlfriend at their high school reunion.
“I told Randy we were pushing the boundaries of science,” Buttsworth admitted from his hiding place in an undisclosed location. “But I never expected the pressure valves to fail simultaneously while he was connected to my prototype helium-hydrogen hybrid inflation system.”
Witnesses report that Bounceman’s posterior expanded to roughly the size of a small automobile before the safety restraints snapped, launching him through the laboratory’s plate glass window at an estimated 35 miles per hour.
“Sweet mother of pearl, I ain’t never seen nothing like it,” gasped eyewitness Dolores Krankshaw, who was walking her poodle near the square when Bounceman first ricocheted off the Civil War monument. “He was bouncing around like one of them rubber super balls, except he was screaming and his rear end was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Poor Fluffy hasn’t stopped shaking.”
The situation quickly escalated as Bounceman’s uncontrollable bouncing began damaging storefronts, street lamps, and parked vehicles. Emergency services were initially baffled by the 911 calls describing a “giant-bottomed human bouncy ball terrorizing Main Street.”
Mayor Patricia Stufflebottom immediately declared a local state of emergency and cordoned off a six-block radius around the town square. “We’ve dealt with tornadoes, floods, and that incident with the radioactive corn maze in ’97, but this is unprecedented,” she stated at an emergency press conference.
The Springfield Fire Department’s initial attempts to capture Bounceman using traditional methods proved futile. Ladder trucks, safety nets, and even tranquilizer darts bounced harmlessly off his inflated posterior as he continued his chaotic journey through the downtown area.
“The aerodynamics were completely wrong,” explained Dr. Wilhelmina Gassbag, a professor of Experimental Inflation Sciences at the University of Dubious Research. “The hydrogen-helium mixture created an unpredictable buoyancy coefficient combined with unprecedented elasticity. Frankly, it’s a miracle he didn’t achieve orbital velocity.”
Salvation came in the form of the hastily assembled Emergency Deflation Response Team, a specialized unit apparently maintained by the Department of Homeland Security for exactly these types of situations. The team, arriving in unmarked black vans with sophisticated puncturing equipment, managed to corner Bounceman in the fountain outside City Hall.
Using military-grade deflation darts, the team slowly reduced Bounceman’s posterior to manageable proportions over a tense forty-minute period. Paramedics report he suffered only minor bruises and acute embarrassment, though he has developed an inexplicable fear of balloons and refuses to sit on anything softer than concrete.
Dr. Buttsworth’s laboratory has been seized by federal authorities, who refuse to comment on the nature of his research or whether similar experiments are being conducted elsewhere. Suspicious observers note that several government vehicles with out-of-state plates have been spotted around town since the incident.
The mayor has announced plans to install permanent anti-bouncing barriers around sensitive municipal buildings, funded by a mysterious federal grant that appeared within hours of the incident’s conclusion.
Bounceman has reportedly been offered a substantial settlement in exchange for his silence about the experiment’s true nature, leading conspiracy theorists to speculate about government involvement in buttock enhancement research.
The characters and events depicted in this story are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events is unintentional and purely coincidental.
