Think you've had a bad week? I bet it pales in comparison to the week Zheng and Wang have had.
Before you ask, Zheng and Wang are a pair of Chinese construction workers who just wanted a shorter drive to a new worksite. They chose a natural gap in an old ancient earth berm and used their excavator to widen the old path so they could drive their work truck.
Unfortunately, Zhang and Wang did not dial 8-1-1 before they dug. Imagine their surprise when they were arrested the next day for knocking a hole in a significant historical artifact. It's unclear what the penalty might be for destruction of a cultural relic for these natives of inner Mongolia, but whatever, look at the upside.
History will forever show that only the great Ghengis Khan and the lesser lights Zhang and Wang ever breached the Great Wall of China.
The perpetrators are pleading ignorance. They had no idea they were knocking a hole in anything anyone cared about.
Closer to home, some guy claiming exactly the same defense isn't having such a good week, either.
Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in punching a hole in the U.S. Capital in an attempt to stop the ratification of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021. Think he's proud to have the longest January 6 prison sentence so far?
Tarrio claimed ignorance period. He had no idea he was a Proud Boy, claiming to just be "kinda cocky". He certainly couldn't have known that inviting a few hundred armed thugs in riot gear to support some guy would result in the worst insurrectionist violence in DC since the British burned the White House.
Finally, how could he possibly know some Trump guy he's never heard of was going to encourage the crowd of confused to get to the capital and raise hell? He really just thought it was a pro America rally to get out and support the president elect.
"Hey I was chanting Let's Go Brandon like everybody else, I couldn't be any more supportive of the new guy...you know, President Joe Brandon," Tarrio claimed.
If this guy could get twenty two years for his role in an insurrection he claimed to be ignorant of, imagine what someone else who is really responsible for it could get?
But before we get carried away with that, let's don't.
I was on assignment last week. I went to Spain for an event that could be the cure for all of our bad weeks if we let it.
Every year in the town of Bunol, Spain, 120 tons of over-ripe tomatoes are left on main street for revelers to gather at noon for a 1 hour tomato fight. No sides, no teams, just 15,000 people throwing tomatoes at each other.
At the end of the hour, fire trucks hose the streets and revelers down and peace is restored for another year.
I think if Congress did this in the capital once a year, things would be a lot different.