The Toilet Paper Article of the Week: Knock ‘Em Dead Kid

Here’s an article from our friends over at The Toilet Paper. To subscribe to their free ball busting daily newsletter, click here.

Most 16-year-old girls are concerned about pimples, prom, and being popular. For Californian teenager Abby Sunderland, being hi-jacked by pirates, crushed in blinding squalls, or starving to death top the list.

Last Friday, the young sailor hopped aboard her boat Wild Eyes and set out to be the youngest person to sail around the world. Crazy? You bet your sea cock. But with social networking, bullying, pregnancy pacts, gang violence, and all the other dreck facing many teenage girls attending high school today, spending 150 days on a boat alone doesn’t sound so dangerous.

Number

24,500 – Miles of Abby’s planned trip. Some items she will be taking with her are some books, her iPod, a couple of cameras, and six months of dehydrated food.

We’d throw on 40 skids of beer for ballast.

Quote

“A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”

Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick

So, like a paper on harpoon maintenance and a final on scurvy? What’s the big deal?

Word

circumnavigation

noun. 1. Sailing or flying around; making the circuit by navigation. 2. Preliminary fly-by the doctor does before snipping the turtleneck off your wang.

Fact

Abby’s brother Zac Sunderland was 17 when he sailed around the world on a 36-foot Islander sailboat he bought for $6,000. It took him 13 months and 2 days. His sister plans to do it in 5 months. No one likes a one-upper, Abby.

The List

The Young and Ambitious

Braxton Bilbey, 7 – Youngest person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco. No that is not shrinkage, folks; he is seven.
Victoria Rae White, 10 – Youngest person to ski on all seven continents. Incredibly difficult to do, unless of course your parents are … rich!
Adám Lörincz, 14 – Youngest person to compose a musical. Surprisingly still picked last for kickball.
Katie Walter, 17 – Youngest person to reach the South Pole. It is unknown whether or not she did it for the cute winter outfit.

For more in-your-face news blasts, click here to subscribe to The Toilet Paper now.