The World’s Oldest Man Injects Himself With Bacon Cheeseburgers Every Day

Every morning after Abraham Jones wakes up, he injects a bacon cheeseburger directly into his bloodstream. Over the course of the day, he’ll inject himself with anywhere between 70 and 80 more bacon cheeseburgers, something he started doing when he was a teenager.

He is now 163 years old.

Scientists are at a loss explaining not just Jones’ remarkable age (he’s been officially declared the world’s oldest man by the Guinness Book of World Records), but his health. The Middleton, Ohio native isn’t some feeble old man: though he retired from working at the local hardware store at age 65 — the former “mom and pop” shop is now owned by the superchain Lowe’s — residents of Middleton know him as an active member of the community, and will often stop him as he drags his bag of bacon cheeseburgers and needles around town to chat about sports, the weather, or just get a good story about the town’s history.

At first, both historians and scientists were dubious of Jones’ claims. The cheeseburger wasn’t invented until 1926 in Pasadena, California and bacon cheeseburgers weren’t introduced until 1963 by A&W. But public records available in Middleton back up the fact that Jones was born in 1854. The bacon cheeseburger claim was a little harder to prove, but researchers soon discovered Jones had grown up on a farm, and would often experiment with mixing three different farm products in bizarre combinations (he also claims to have invented the turducken).

Further research turned up an old picture of Jones with a large pile of bacon cheeseburgers. An inscription on the back read “Abraham Jones w/pile of bacon cheeseburgers; April 9, 1873,” followed by a second inscription in Jones’ handwriting (verified by experts) that said “put ‘em in my veins!” Carbon dating proved the authenticity of the picture, and though scientists were baffled, they begrudgingly admitted Jones was telling the truth.

So how, exactly, does Jones inject bacon cheeseburgers into his body? And could this be the key to longevity that scientists have been searching for? Dr. Regina Malloy, a longevity expert who has been studying Jones for the past three years, had a particular take on this.

“F — k no,” Malloy told us. “It’s like a f — king magic trick. He somehow gets a bacon cheeseburger in a needle, and then like it’s some sort of cartoon, boop, down it goes through the needle and into his body.”

She added, “one time we did a full body scan, and the bacon cheeseburgers were dancing in his blood like they were in that ‘Let’s Go Out To The Lobby’ thing they used to play before movies.”

Still, that hasn’t stopped others from trying. Since news of Jones’ record was announced by Guinness, sales of bacon cheeseburgers have skyrocketed, as have the rate of cardiac arrests recorded by hospitals nationwide. Jones himself seems immune to the chatter, mostly because he injects himself with a bacon cheeseburger every 15–17 minutes (he sleeps only four hours a night, a feat he also attributes to the bacon cheeseburgers) and therefore is extremely busy.

“I’m just a-tryin’ tuh inject mah cheeseburgers and live mah life,” Jones told us bashfully as he dragged his sacks through the center of town. A small crowd of children stopped him soon after this, laughing and giggling as he sat on a park bench and injected a bacon cheeseburger directly into his body.

The question remains, though: if bacon cheeseburgers are the secret to a long life, how many should you eat a day?

“Are you f — king kidding me?” Malloy said when asked by phone during a follow-up call. “Don’t eat any, ever. They are terrible for you. You will die. No. No, no, no. No.”

[Editor’s Note: The original version of this article ended with a section where our reporter tried injecting a bacon cheeseburger into his veins, stating, “I feel great!” Since he died mere moments after, we have removed the section.]