MADISON, Wis.—Kevin Nelson, 22, a well-respected journalist who considered himself the ""President of Awesome,"" was taken down in his prime Saturday.
The projectile that felled him was not a bullet ringing out from the grassy knoll, but a snowball ringing out from a knoll that was probably grassy, but hidden under a ton of snow. Also, the knoll was paved, and the snowball actually came from the passenger of a speeding car.
Unlike other high profile assassinations, Mr. Nelson was not hit in the head. Instead the snowball hit him in the groin, an area many male commentators have noted, ""hurts a heckuvalot more than a head shot.""
This flagrant attempt to end Mr. Nelson's life—or at the very least, ensure he couldn't properly father children—was met with great success. Not only is he now dead, but the sole act of being dead has seriously hampered his reproductive abilities. Score one for the intrepid assassins!
When Mr. Nelson was hit, unlike Mr. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he did not go back and to the left... back and to the left... back and to the left. Instead, Mr. Nelson jerked backward with his middle finger up... backward with his middle finger up... backward with his middle finger up.
A profanity-laced statement spewed from his mouth, shocking the surprisingly large amount of pre-teens surrounding him. But Mr. Nelson did not care, for they did not get hit in the groin, they were not the ones dying.
A surprised and offended onlooker said the situation looked ""painful.""
This was not the first drive-by attempted on Mr. Nelson—it wasn't even the first time a random person threw a snowball at him, starting with the snowball-to-the-neck incident of March 18, 2006. He even survived the drive-by-pop-bottling of Feb. 5, 2006, during which a bottle of pop—most likely of the Dr. Pepper variety—was flung at Mr. Nelson at speeds in excess of 30 miles per hour.
Sadly, few of these assassination attempts impressed Jodie Foster.
Although Mr. Nelson embodied his ""President of Awesome"" title by the way he walked and the way he talked, this lofty role had little to do with how he arrived in his predicaments.
Sources close to Mr. Nelson in life theorize the reason people flung stuff at him is merely ""he was there.""
It was not his politics or his ""Ode to Increasingly Sized Concentric Circles"" t-shirt that ended his life, but a simple case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although, on one occasion, one of the attackers did inform Mr. Nelson that he ""ran like a fag"" before throwing the projectile at him.
This lack of motive will polarize the nation for decades to come. Conspiracy theorists will make claim that up to 17 snowball-throwers took part in the conspiracy or that it never actually happened and Mr. Nelson's groin just spontaneously burst into flames on its own... minus the flame.
