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In The Royal Tenenbaums, the patriarch of the family, Royal, wanting to be perceived as a better man in death than he was in life, had his tombstone inscribed: “Died saving his family from the wreckage of a destroyed, sinking battleship.” Royal Tenenbaum, in actuality, died of a heart attack. This is perfectly illustrative of a common human need: We all want to be remembered as something special. But some people don’t have to make up elaborate deaths to get there, the real world kills perfectly fantastically on its own, thank you. Here are five bizarre deaths just this year that prove it:

The Exploding Weather Rocket

Wang Diange was attending a wake in his own home, when suddenly the roof exploded. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Wang was dead. There was no clear indication of what, exactly, had struck Wang dead, (aside from the somewhat dickish desire to one up a man at his own wake,) and since it was a stormy day outside, relatives and police just figured it must have been lightning.

But when they went to cremate Wang, the body itself exploded with such force that it blew the doors clean off the cremation furnace! While one could be forgiven for interpreting this fantastic event as the unique ability of some Chinese people to self destruct like the Predator, witnesses dug a bit further for a slightly less retardedly racist explanation, and surprisingly they found one: Wang had actually been struck by an unexploded weather rocket, which hit his body with so high a velocity that it embedded itself inside him without leaving an obvious entry wound. When exposed to heat, the rocket, filled with silver iodide used to break up hail, naturally exploded, taking most of Wang’s body and all of his dignity in death with it; because no matter how great he was in life, he will always be remembered best as the setup to an “exploding wang” joke.

Years later, the Chinese Weather Bureau would settle with Wang’s family for a sum of about twelve thousand dollars. So, next time you catch yourself wondering how much, exactly, a human being’s life is worth? Yeah, it’s about the price of a used ’02 Nissan Sentra.

The Exploding Cell Phone

A Chinese man recently exploded for no discernible reason, as they are wont to do (see above) and, upon further investigation a cause was eventually found: His cell phone. It seems the man, a computer clerk in his early twenties, had just finished charging his cell phone and slipped it into his pocket when, as a coworker puts it, she “heard a loud bang and turned to find the victim lying a pool of blood.”

While a lesser people may have spoken with more confusion and fear upon seeing a close friend randomly self destruct, apparently it just ain’t even a thing anymore in China: There’s been ten reported in the last five years alone! Even though we’re talking about the most populous country on earth here, that’s still a surprisingly high number of people taking personal calls from explosions.

The Lice Murders

In what is surely the plot of the worst Kung-fu film in history, a 26 year old Russian karate expert recently took his direst revenge upon a rival family for dishonoring his lady love…by infecting her with lice. Though neighbors do agree that the lice-ridden family responsible for this intense dishonor were rude and often drank too much, I’m sure we can all agree that beating them to death with your bare hands for giving your girlfriend an itchy scalp is just a tad bit much. It gets even worse when you realize that the villainous, drunken bastard family responsible for defiling such a pristine, virginal scalp were: A 61 year old woman, her 58 year old husband, and their 25 year-old son.

See, this is what happens when you don’t get any decent villainy in your life; if somebody’s kung-fu school doesn’t get razed to the ground once in a while, all that revenge builds up and really, what’s a karate master supposed to do? Go to counseling? Scream into a throw pillow? Hell no, he fucking sets out on an epic quest for revenge, that’s what he does. That’s just how karate works.

Sadly, two people are now dead and a family (of admittedly somewhat gross people) has been totally destroyed for three basic reasons: Russians are a passionate people, karate is a deadly skill, and vodka is a son of a bitch.

The Samurai vs. Grandma

A 77 year old woman died in Indianapolis earlier this year, stricken down by tragic violence when she attempted to…wait, what? Hold on, let me read this again and make sure.

Nope, that’s correct.

The 77 year old woman died trying to break up a sword fight involving her grandson and his brother-in-law. That’s right! This year, in Indianapolis, a grandmother died breaking up a domestic swordfight. What fucking year do we live in?! I’ve never been to Indianapolis, but I was given to believe it was a bit more Dazed and Confused than The Seven Samurai.

Though it is indeed tragic that a woman as apparently badass as this grandmother could be felled by a mere blade forged of the hands of man, the real tragedy here is her grandsons’ fate: Damned to eternally suffer the wounds of their own conscience for sucking so hard at swordfighting that the only person they managed to kill was their own grandmother. So a moment of silence, please, for a woman so noble that she would literally jump headlong into a swordfight just to save two retards.

A Drive-by Corpsing

A 16-year old Chinese student named Wu Dan was taken to the hospital recently, after being knocked off his bicycle when he was hit by something thrown from a speeding car. In a statement given to police, his uncle stated that “a car passed, and a package came flying out the door.” Then, because China is apparently a seriously fucked up place to be, the uncle elaborated: “It had a dead woman inside.”

That’s right! It was a drive-by corpsing!

Finally, somebody has combined the random terror of a drive-by with the unsettling imagery of a desecrated corpse. Unless it was an angry necromancer out to settle a gangland beef with his plucky but irritating young rival, there is absolutely no valid reason for a 16 year old boy to be hit by corpse-litter hurled from a speeding automobile. The uncle, in what is quite possibly the single most understated comment ever issued in the history of tragedy, went on to describe Wu Dan’s reaction to being shot by a ghoul-bullet: “He was very upset.”

End. Fucking. Statement.

Think what you will about China after reading this article – that they are apparently a tragic fantasy land of random death – but you have to give them one thing: They are a god damn unshakeable people. And apparently they have to be, because everybody just up and fucking explodes there.

Follow Robert on Twitter, on Facebook, or his own site, I Fight Robots. In case you haven’t already gotten your fill of absurdist racism.