[Buzz_Dengue]

Flick: Live lobsters in pants not recommended
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 9:00 am

One of the grand things about life - in addition to things like weekends and occasionally engulfing an entire bag of those mini-Snickers bars - is man's ability to never quit being the planet's most amazing animal.

What follows as further proof are these recent news stories, culled from the papers and packaged, as always, under the title of News Is Stranger Than Fiction:

�At a Winn Dixie grocery store in D'Iberville, Miss., a 35-year-old was arrested on shoplifting charges after he stuffed down his pants a bag of jumbo shrimp, a frozen pork loin and two live lobsters and tried to walk out of the store with them. "In all my years in law enforcement," said Police Chief Wayne Payne later, "I've seen people shoplift all kinds of items, but never live lobster. It's a good thing the rubber bands didn't break."

�In Elmhurst, the Chicago suburb, police arrested a 35-year-old man who had been sneaking into Mount Emblem Cemetery since April, stealing gravesite vases and selling them to a scrap dealer for cash. By the time he was caught, he had made more than $100,000 in sales, according to police.

�At the New York Attorney General's office, a 36-year-old, well-respected, demurely dressed lawyer who had prosecuted many of the state's high-profile securities fraud cases was suspended. It occurred after it was learned she moonlighted as "Alisha Spark," a dominatrix at a local S&M club in the city.

�In Salem, Ore., a woman with terminal bone cancer and mounting medical bills began trying to sell off her possessions with a series of yard sales. That's when she was warned by inspectors that the city has a law limiting residents to three yard sales per year and that at her next sale, she would be charged with a crime and subject to a $300 fine.

�After getting a report of someone dressed as a clown driving a golf cart erratically near a city street, police in Batavia, N.Y., rushed to the scene to discover it was not a clown but just a golfer in his usual colorful golf attire. He was later charged with drunken golf-cart driving.

�In Long Beach, Calif., a man trying to rob another using his .38-caliber revolver could not figure out why the gun would not fire, at which point he peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. Sadly, he was only 22.

�At a Hilton hotel in Santa Rosa, Calif., a guest filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the motel chain, saying he thought the USA Today left at the base of his door was free, not 75 cents.

�In Phoenix, surgeons successfully removed from the skull of an 86-year-old man the pruning shears he had dropped while gardening and then fell upon when he tried to pick them up. "Oh, Leroy, honey, what have you done?" asked the man's wife when he went inside to report he'd had a gardening accident.

�At a 7-Eleven store in Rancho Penasquitos, Calif., a man wearing a 6-foot-tall Gumby costume walked in to announce the store was being robbed but the clerk, who had never heard of Gumby, told him not to waste his time. That flustered the costumed man, who was unable to reach the gun wedged inside the outfit, but in the process dropped 27 cents on the floor and ran out.

Finally, our September favorite:

�At a used car dealership in Portsmouth, N.H., a man whose wife bought a van with damage from a previous wreck but was denied a refund, took the van back himself that night and drove it into the lot - straight into seven other vehicles. "I hit all the over-$25,000 cars I could see," said David Cross. Then he flagged down a police car and turned himself in. "I woke up this morning," Cross said later, "and wondered if it was a dream. Then I looked over and there were all my bail papers."


Bill Flick is at [email protected]
Flick: Live lobsters in pants not recommended