Unexpected cargo dumps leave bystanders steaming

I have had bad days. But (so far) I have never had one as bad as Nina Gambone, Susan Seltzer or Eileen Danowski.

I think of poor Nina every time one of those huge jets flies over Cobb Manor on the way to Europe. I am sure you saw the story in late January and shuddered like I did.

It seems that our girl Nina parked her beloved Toyota Corolla in her Leominster, Mass., driveway and walked into her house with her 13-year-old son, never dreaming how her day would turn out.

Nina heard a terrible crash and ran outside. She never would drive that Corolla again and would never want to.

A “beach ball size chunk of frozen human waste” had smashed the windshield and roof, The Associated Press reported. Can you imagine?

The Federal Aviation Administration determined that the “chunk” had fallen from a passing jet plane, probably landing from Europe. The FAA, unfortunately, could not determine which plane dropped its load on Leominster.

Gambone says she called her fire department in Leominster, which said they couldn’t remove the glob because it was classified as “hazardous waste.”

It was an all too familiar tale to teacher Susan Seltzer of North Massapequa, Long Island, who had left the house in New York state last year to go shopping just before something crashed through her roof.

The New York Daily News reported that she found ice “about the size of a honeydew melon” in the hallway when she returned.

Her husband Kenneth said the ball of ice punched a hole in the roof, damaged joists in the attic and then holed the bathroom ceiling before bouncing 15 feet down the hall.

Mrs. Seltzer said: “Aren’t they supposed to dump this stuff over the ocean? I don’t think they were aiming for my toilet.”

Local police and the Federal Aviation Administration investigated the incident, of course. Airliners are supposed to dump toilet waste over bodies of water.

Eileen and Alphonse Danowski of Riverhead, Long Island, know all about it. Eileen said that a chunk of “what looked like brown ice” crashed through her roof last year and landed on her kitchen floor just 3 feet away from her while she was cooking.

The ice chunk, about the size of a bowling ball, ripped an 8-inch-by-12-inch hole in the roof and ceiling and broke plates in the kitchen cabinets.

“All of a sudden it was like an explosion. It was all over the floor. I backed away from it, saw there wasn’t a fire, then said, ‘I’m getting out of here.'”

Eileen got her husband and they called the fire department, who examined the chunk and told the Danowskis it was a chunk of frozen human waste dropped from a jet’s latrine in the skies overhead. Fire officials told Mrs. Danowski that if the chunk had hit her, it could have killed her.

“I’ve heard of manna from heaven, but this wasn’t the right kind of manna,” Eileen said. “Someone pushed the wrong button or something. It was gross, believe me.”

“We had to leave it there all day, and it smelled,” she said. “The police photographer had to come, and the insurance guy had to come out. He thought we were kidding.”

Joan Brown, the spokeswoman for the regional office of the Federal Aviation Administration, reported faithfully that the incident is “completely under investigation.” She said bathroom waste sometimes seeps to the outside hull of airliners, then it freezes and drops to the ground.

Just something new to worry about while sitting on the deck of Cobb Manor, sipping my lemonade.

What a way to go.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.