Requelme Abanto, a 26-year-old construction worker from Cajamarca, Peru, has an unusual claim to fame. “They call me the hardware store,” he was quoted as saying. Why is he the hardware store? Well, apparently he’s been eating coins, scrap metal, nails, and copper wire for the past several months. When his unusual hunger for metal started causing stomach pains, doctors opened him up and removed 1.5 pounds of metal debris from within his stomach.
Obviously, there’s something wrong with Abanto to drive him to eat all this metal, but now apparently he sees a potential way to make money while still making metal detectors go nuts. He wants to eat metal stuff in public as a sport, no doubt as performance art or as some way to make money, like via bets. It’s a shame they don’t have sideshows anymore, because he’d be perfect as a sword swallower or all-purpose geek.
Image: NASA
Tags: the hardware store, man swallows 1.5 pounds of metal, man eats metal, man swallows nails, Requelme Abanto, Peru, Cajamarca