OAKLAND, Calif. — Concertgoer Seth Mosley had no choice but to chew off his own foot after it got stuck to the floor in a trap set by years of spilled Pabst Blue Ribbon, confirmed sources seen tip-toeing around the Bottom of the Barrel venue ever since.
“I thought the floor would let up, but it pulled harder every time I tried to escape, like some Chinese finger trap,” Mosley remembered in a hospital bed. “I just came to see Subsonic Eye. I wanted a good view. I stepped in a beer trap. I did my best not to panic. But after being stuck watching two awful, no-good opening acts I knew I had to escape. I poured an IPA onto the floor to dissolve my foot free, and I just got crusted in worse! I had no choice. I had to gnaw my way out or watch a third opener, so I did what any normal person would, and chewed through my foot until it was completely severed, bones and all. Besides walking, I almost never use that foot anyway.”
Venue staff acknowledged the trap’s existence but admitted there was nothing they could do about it.
“I found that guy’s foot, what with all the viscera and lager. You might be thinking that it sounds like a mess to mop up. Well, that patch was already a bastard to clean before it had foot blood all up in it,” explained longtime venue janitor Sal Bucco. “Believe me, I’ve tried everything to clean up that particular area. I’ve tried throwing water on it and letting it soak overnight. I’ve tried dumping dish soap on it. Hell, I’ve even tried not thinking about it and hoping it’d go away on its own. But when even sweeping it up failed, I knew that it was just part of this venue’s permanent character.“
As news of Mosley’s foot spread throughout the Bay Area scene, punks pushed for improved venue conditions.
“Fans have a right to humane treatment!” punk rights activist Angela Derby explained on a picket line in front of Bottom of the Barrel. “If you want to capture an audience, you should either plan on a painless release, like by allowing ins and outs, or kill them quickly and humanely, like with a giant snap trap. Leaving fans in place on sticky, beer-soaked floors like they’re flies on fly paper only prolongs their suffering. We can’t — and shouldn’t — have another Seth permanently stuck behind a six-foot-tall human barricade.”
Going forward, Bottom of the Barrel announced they will retain a bulldozer to scrape stuck attendees free.