Anti-Darwin awards

People who have remained in the gene pool due to their incompetence.

A Taoyuan County couple who could not get their parents' blessing to marry split up after three failed attempts to commit suicide together, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday.

A man identified only as Lin (林), 30, had been dating a woman surnamed Lee (李) for a year and wanted to marry her, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported.

But both sets of parents were opposed to the marriage, so Lin and Lee decided to commit suicide, the report said.

Over the weekend, the pair checked into a Taipei County hotel, determined to commit suicide by burning charcoal. However, the smoke detector in their room went off and hotel staff expelled them from the hotel, the report said.

The pair checked into another hotel. This time they wrapped a towel around the smoke detector, but the alarm still went off, and again they were forced to leave by staffers, who feared a suicide would bring bad luck to the hotel.

The couple decided to return home, but quarreled in the car. Lee scratched Lin, and Lin hit Lee. When they got to Taoyuan County, they went to the police station to press charges against each other, putting an end to their relationship.

Have they considered actually, um, just getting married without their parent's blessing and forgoing all this romeo and juliet drama? Sigh.

Having said that, I would have really have like to hear the conversation in that car.