I’ve been a Mercury intern for about four weeks, and spend all day browsing headlines for disturbing things to blog about. From a post about animal attacks I wrote on Thursday, I discovered something about myself. Nearly all of my ideas are inspired by an innate sense of dread I feel every waking minute, exacerbated by real-life stories that affirm those anxieties. And I bet I’m not alone. So I think it’d be a great public service to accumulate my findings in a weekly segment I’m going to start calling “What Wants to Kill Me This Week?” This is essentially what all news agencies do anyway, but while most spend their time reporting on plane crashes and mall massacres, I’d like to take a minute to look at some of the bizarre dangers that perhaps aren’t being taken seriously enough. These things may be unconventional, but that doesn’t make them any less bloodthirsty.

So, for this week, what wants to kill me?

Iron Man: he’s real. There’s a real-life Iron Man suit being prepared for deployment into the military that gives wearers robo-strength and makes them look unbelievably badass. HYDRAULIC THIGHS.

ironman.jpg

Bentley hood ornaments: the luxury car manufacturer is recalling hundreds of vehicles to replace the mechanics on the company’s retractable wing-shaped hood ornaments, to reduce the risk of impaling pedestrians on impact. It’s one thing to get run over by a car. It’s another to be skewered by a status symbol. PEASANT-KABOB.

Segway scooters crashing into mailboxes and parked cars: MSNBC reported that the rate of Segway scooter accidents involving “massive facial trauma” and similar injuries is seeing an alarming increase. We’d ask Segway company owner Jim Heselden for a response, but he scooted his own Segway off a cliff on Sunday. IRONY.

Frontier justice: an Arkansas man accidentally hanged himself on Thursday when he passed out with a frontier museum display noose wrapped around his neck. The man was apparently posing for a goofy photo with the noose over his head, when he lost consciousness and had be freed from strangulation by museum staff. ALIVE but ASHAMED.

Vampires: gothic teens are biting each other’s necks and drinking one another’s blood, presumably, because they actually believe themselves to be vampires. HEPATITIS MILKSHAKE.

Robert Deniro, Marc Anthony, Donald Trump and Howard Stern: these stars all have concealed weapons permits. AMERICA.