MIAMI, FL - Tyler Paulson may look like an ordinary custodian, but he’s the most radioactive man in the world. That was the ruling of a three-judge panel last weekend, during the final event of the annual World Radiation Fair.
“I just want to thank all my friends and family out there who made this possible,” said Paulson as he accepted the award, tears in his eyes. “I couldn’t have done it without you, guys.”
The judging panel decided conclusively in Paulson’s favor, after standard Geiger counter readings revealed the Miami local was consistently emitting nearly 0.3 grays of ionizing radiation every second, nearly twice as much as the runner-up, Sally Watts of Multnomah Falls, Oregon. “I haven’t seen anything this radioactive since that thing with the pandas in 1997,” observed judge Howard Ridley, sitting behind the podium in his ceremonial lead-lined robes. “You’re a dangerous man, Mr. Paulson.”
Paulson explains he’s been highly radioactive for nearly five months now, despite emitting enough radiation every minute to kill a grown man. “I don’t know how I’m still alive,” Paulson confessed. His first clue that he had become a radiological hazard was when his coworkers keeled over in front of him.
“It seemed like everywhere I went people just started puking and running away,” explains Paulson. “At first I thought it was just my deodorant but then my wife died of cancer and I was like, oh duh! I learned about this in high school.”
Nobody knows for certain what transformed the unassuming custodian into one of the most dangerous objects on earth, but Paulson says he thinks it has something to do with the frighteningly tall men in grotesque animal masks who stole into his room late one night and walked around his bed chanting for several minutes. “Call me paranoid, but I thought there was something fishy about that whole thing,” says Paulson.
The competition, however, was not without controversy. Some decried Paulson’s victory as “illegitimate,” pointing out that the body of Lauderdale local Cynthia Perkins, which has been entombed deep within a nuclear reactor core to prevent further Incidents, was far more radioactive than Paulson could ever hope to be. The judges dismissed these claims.
“We’ve never given this award to someone who was dead before,” says Ridley, “and we’re certainly not about to start this year.”
Samothrace Exodus Watkinson, Esq. is Approved News 6's entertainment correspondent, boasting an unvarying 374 years of industry experience due to an childhood chronomancy accident, and known internationally for hir brutal death at the hands of Russian insurgents and subsequent unexplained reappearance. Xe lives in New York City with hir massive personal harem, seventeen gerbils, and extensive collection of blackmail material