The Peculiar History of People Taking Things Way Too Literally

Let's start with the case of the beer bottle collector, because this is the kind of thing that separates a person with a hobby from a person with a thesis. Back in the 1950s, a gentleman named Peter Eckrich became convinced that breweries were lying about the volume of beer in their bottles. Not suspicious. Not skeptical. Convinced. So he did what any reasonable person would do: he collected and catalogued 46,000 beer bottles to measure them all individually. He was not sponsored. There was no grant. He just started drinking beer and taking notes like a man possessed by the ghost of a German chemist. When he was done, his data proved absolutely nothing because, as it turns out, beer bottles are pretty consistent when you're not cherry-picking your measurements. But the man had 46,000 bottles and approximately zero friends left.

Now consider the matter of Pearlie Harris, a federal administrative law judge who in 2007 sued a dry cleaning establishment in Washington, D.C. for $54 million. The alleged crime: they lost her pants. Well, technically, the sign in the window said "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and she took it literally. A reasonable person might accept a refund. Judge Harris countered with a lawsuit that demanded $1,500 per day for mental anguish spanning the next decade. She did eventually settle for $12,000, which I mention only because it means she felt those pants were worth the legal fees and public humiliation combined.

But the real treasure here is the case of Bruno Brandes, a man from Germany who decided in the 1990s that he would eat an entire airplane. Not metaphorically. Literally. A Cessna 150. Over the course of two years, he consumed the entire plane—wings, cockpit, landing gear, the works—by grinding it into powder and ingesting it in small portions mixed with food. He lived. His stomach, presumably, filed for divorce. When asked why, he explained that he had already eaten other objects, so this seemed like a natural escalation. In what can only be described as the medical system admitting defeat, doctors have classified this condition as "Pica Gone Right," which means his digestive system somehow processed an airplane better than it probably should have.

These stories share a common thread: they represent humans who encountered a problem, perceived an obstacle, and responded with a level of commitment that transcends reason. It's admirable in the way that watching someone reorganize their entire basement at 2 a.m. is admirable—you respect the dedication while fearing for their mental health.

This Week in Weird History: In 1814, a vat containing over 135,000 imperial gallons of beer ruptured in London, causing a tsunami of ale that destroyed homes and killed eight people, which remains the only recorded instance of someone dying from beer they didn't drink.