Embarrassment comes in all shapes and sizes. For example, police forces across the country use unmarked cars in undercover work. The Dallas police recently used a 2004 Infinity they'd seized in a drug raid. They used the car for 2 months before discovering $400,000 worth of cocaine hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments of the car. Obviously, their undercover work didn't include under their own cover.
Then there was the incident at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. According to The Project on Government Oversight blog, the base was put on security lockdown after it was discovered nuclear weapon launch codes had been lost. In a press release the Air Force said the codes were never missing. The crew guarding the codes had just fallen asleep - which seems to be another way of saying our national security is nothing to lose sleep over.
When the Army Corp of Engineers was called to protect the wetlands around Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana, the engineers set up two-dimensional cutouts of coyotes to scare away geese that were eating the wetland plants. Unfortunately, the geese were fooled for only a couple of weeks; but the engineers' embarrassment didn't end there. Concerned citizens who saw the cutouts called the local port authority to report having seen dogs stranded on the lake's islands. When PETA called about the dogs, an appropriate response would have been, "Doggone!"
Detroit's embarrassment has to do with its population. Because of the slump in the auto industry, Detroit is now second only to New Orleans in population loss. However, it's not just people needing jobs who are leaving. According to the Detroit News, dead people are leaving too. Between 2003 and 2008 more than 1,000 of the city's deceased were disinterred by suburban relatives and moved to surrounding areas. Looking on the bright side, this means Detroit isn't a dead end city.
Surprisingly, not all embarrassment is embarrassing. For an Indiana man it was lucky. When Bobby Guffey bought his usual lottery ticket, he had forgotten his glasses. Although he always plays the same numbers - a combination of his 5 children's birthdays - he entered the last number incorrectly. Yes, that mistake earned him $3 million; but because he was embarrassed by his mistake, Guffey went back into the store and bought a ticket with the correct numbers. That ticket won him $1,000 - proving it pays to see your mistakes.
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