DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS, BRITISH DIVISION...
Rubber Cushion: To John Bloor, who mistook a tube of Superglue for his hemorrhoid cream and glued his buttocks together.
Fact or fiction? It's hard to say with absolute certainty, but the fact that the selfsame item has been posted time and time again as "fresh news" on the Internet over the past 10 years does cast a smidgeon of doubt on its authenticity.
Befitting its status as a modern miracle invention, Superglue legends loom large in urban folklore. In its purest form the stuff can withstand a ton of pressure on a one-square-inch bond. It sets in seconds and can be used to stick anything to just about anything else, permanently. Since its discovery 60-odd years ago, the ultra-sticky substance known to consumers as Superglue, Krazy Glue, Permabond and Kola Loka has inspired a plethora of folktales which generally fall into one of three categories: Origins, Mishaps and Pranks.
Superglue Origins
The following was culled from a message board posting:
What is now marketed as Superglue (TM, patent pending, whatever) was invented in the UK as a replacement for sutures. That is what it was designed for originally, not a household adhesive.
Not quite. Although Superglue has been used with great success in place of sutures for certain medical procedures, the oft-made claim that it was originally invented for this purpose is false.
In fact, Superglue (known to chemists as cyanoacrylate) was invented quite by accident. Twice. In both cases, scientists were hoping to come up with new plastic compounds for use in applications such as gun sights and jet canopies but happened unexpectedly upon a formulation that stuck to basically everything it touched. The first time it happened, during World War II, researchers found it a nuisance. The second time, during the 1950s, a light bulb went on in somebody's head. The product was first sold commercially in 1958.
Superglue Mishaps
Found on the Web, attributed to the Indianapolis Star, February 7, 1994:
Further evidence for the survival of the unfittest is what doctors call the "right-place, wrong-thing" syndrome.
One patient Super-Glued lips (right place) together, thinking it was lip balm (wrong thing). Another used the miracle stickum to apply false eyelashes...
True! A survey of the medical literature on Superglue indicates this kind of mishap is far more common than one might assume. Apparently, people mistake the stuff for other, similarly-packaged products such as eye or ear drops all the time, and end up in the emergency room. In one study, researchers compiled a list of 14 different cases all of which occurred in a single year. This type of mishap, dubbed "inadvertent self-administration of Superglue" by physicians, has inspired consumer groups to call for repackaging of the adhesive.
