NORTHBROOK, Ill.—A family of five received a shock Friday when a visiting relative suggested that events portrayed in the classic holiday film Home Alone would in fact be “impossible”. During one scene in which a steam iron falls three stories and strikes a home invader—(“Marv”)—in the face, the guest went on to say that the trespasser “would be dead” if that “happened in real life”.
“At first I thought maybe I’d heard him wrong,” said Ali Buford, 28, of her uncle Jeffrey Todd, 56, as she recalled the moment. However, the wife and mother of three then overheard Todd again, this time alleging that “they”—presumably the two burglars portrayed in the film—would have died “ten times over by now” in a similar real-world scenario.
“It really gave us pause,” explained husband Nathan Buford. “There’s a blow torch in our tool shed and I’d just been thinking about setting Ali’s head on fire after the kids went to bed.”
“We like to prank each other sometimes,” he added.
Since then, the Bufords have struggled to process the potential implications.
“At my yoga class I occasionally shoot someone in the face with a BB gun, just to keep things light,” mused Ali Buford, visibly haunted. “Whenever they’ve acted injured, I always assumed they were playing along.”
Now, the couple has made it their mission to get to the bottom of the matter.
“Uncle Jeff apparently isn’t the only one,” mused Nathan Buford when asked about their investigation so far. “I’ve found a few doctors online who speculate that colliding with a brick wall could lead to bodily harm.” Some sources go so far as to link other events in the film to “pulmonary” “contusion” and genital “trauma”.
“One YouTube guy said that falling off a staircase can give you splenic lacerations,” Ali Buford recounted. “I find myself wondering if our whole lives have been one big lie.”
In light of their findings, the Bufords are being cautious not to jump to conclusions.
“You have to take what you find online with a grain of salt,” Nathan Buford said. “You can’t believe everything you see.”
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Todd remains unfazed in his original conviction.
“I try and tell people things, but they don’t listen,” he said. “You know, technically the old man across the street never explicitly denies being the South Bend Shovel Slayer.”