Photo courtesy of Noah Birenbaum
Autographs are kind of a weird thing to begin with. They just prove that a famous person was there with an object—piece of paper, whatever—at the same time. Hell, maybe you weren't even there at the same time with the object that was signed by a famous person. It's got a strange touched-by-god kind of vibe, but yet it's something we're pretty into as humans.So if autographs are pretty weird to begin with, then why not make that shit extra wacky? Like, get someone to sign something pretty bizarre and unrelated to them. In the past we've had a Nashville Predators fan ask Ryan Johansen to sign a birth control kit, and someone asked Klay Thompson to sign a toaster, which people credited for a 14-game win streak and the Warriors' 2017 championship season—hell, my 8th grade teacher once asked Matthew McConaughey to sign some meat he bought at a butcher.Milwaukee Bucks fan Noah Birenbaum knew that Brook Lopez would be at a Pick 'n Save in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, signing things, so he wanted to cook up something good. Birenbaum told VICE Sports that he had heard about the Klay Thompson toaster, so he rifled through his basement for something funny, and came up with the microwave. Birenbaum said Lopez loved it, and signed away:
Lopez even included his new Bucks nickname "Splash Mountain" in his John Hancock to add a little flare. (I gave up on a splashed soup microwave joke right here—you're welcome.)Now, each time Noah heats up some victory popcorn, he'll have his guardian angel Brook looking over it to make sure it doesn't burn. Let's just hope that dried sharpie is heat resistant.