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Buying from a store
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Wednesday, October 21, 1992
Kenneth Jeffries, 24, was arrested in West Haven, Conn., in August for robbing a
convenience store. Police reported that he had first offered the clerk $1 for a
pack of gum as a ruse and then taken $40 in the robbery.
However, said police, Jeffries returned a minute later and asked, uncertainly,
"Did I pay for the gum?"
By that time the clerk had summoned police, and Jeffries was soon apprehended.
New way to herd cattle
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Wednesday, October 21, 1992
A Japanese rancher told reporters in Tokyo in July that he herds cattle by
outfitting them with pocket pagers (beepers), which he calls from his portable
phone.
After a week of training, the cows associate the beeping with eating and hustle
up for grub.
Invent artificial dogs
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, November 22, 1992
Researchers at Cornell University recently patented an artificial dog that would
speed up the breeding of fleas for lab use.
Previously, the lab required 25 live, severely infected dogs to breed the 12,000
fleas per day needed in studies of humans' and animals' allergic reactions to
fleas.
Public school dangers
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, November 29, 1992
An investigation by the Dallas Morning News revealed the city's public schools
employ at least 185 people who have been convicted of felonies, including two
convicted murderers.
In response, the school superintendent promised that the city would begin
periodic records checks.
Choking a girlfriend
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, November 29, 1992
The Ontario Press Council dismissed a complaint filed by Allan Sorensen against
the Toronto Sun, which had reported that Sorenson had choked his ex-girlfriend.
Sorensen's complaint was that his reputation was damaged because the Sun engaged
in "speculation" that he had used only one hand to choke her (the other being
forced into her mouth). In fact, he said he used both hands.
Ordered to pay fines
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, November 29, 1992
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) was ordered to pay $333,000
in penalties to Inyo County because DWP's property tax payment arrived late --
after having been sent back for $3.40 in additional postage.
Threaten with a knife
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, November 29, 1992
Robert A. Chase, 45, was charged with threatening an 11-year-old boy with a
knife in Madison, Wis. The boy was watching Chase play basketball with another
adult when the opponent accused Chase of "traveling" (taking steps without
dribbling the ball).
To seek an impartial opinion, Chase asked the boy, but the boy agreed that Chase
had traveled. Chase then allegedly grabbed the boy, held a knife to his throat,
and asked, "Now. Did I travel?"
Scent makes you gamble
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Monday, December 7, 1992
In September, the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation reported the
development of an odor that makes gamblers bet more. In a study in Las Vegas,
slot machines outfitted to emit the odor racked up 45 percent more business.
The neurologist who conducted the study predicted that the scent will become
widely used in Las Vegas.
Locked in the trunk
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Monday, December 7, 1992
Joe Albert Ruiz, 19, was arrested in Santa Maria in September. Police said he
had broken into a car in the middle of the night and was in the trunk,
disconnecting the rear speakers, when the trunk closed and locked him in.
Neighbors reported strange noises, and a police officer called to the scene
heard Ruiz banging on the trunk and yelling, "Let me out!"
Reduce national debt
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Monday, December 7, 1992
In October, an envelope containing $15,000 in cash was left, anonymously, on a
chair at the Detroit IRS office with the instruction to apply it "to reduce the
national debt."
Normal traffic stop
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, December 13, 1992
After police pulled over Kevin Temple, 35, in a routine traffic stop in Bronson,
Fla., in October, a police dog sniffing the trunk became agitated. In the trunk
and back seat, officers found the following live animals: 48 rattlesnakes, a
Gila monster, 45 non-poisonous snakes, 67 scorpions, several tarantulas and
small lizards, and a parrot. Temple said they were just pets.
Hotel's loud snorers
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Sunday, December 13, 1992
In October, the Swallows Hotel in Gateshead, England, offered 11 chronic snorers
a free night's stay so they it could test how well soundproofed the rooms are.
The hotel staff tape-recorded the sounds coming from the rooms and promised the
loudest snorer a prize.
Massive ball of hair
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
December 18, 1992
Three maintenance workers in Alexandria, Ind., fixed a massive street-flooding
problem in October when they pulled a 200-pound hairball from a manhole. Said
one of the men, "We thought we had a goat."
Throw away exhibits
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
December 18, 1992
In October, a cleaning crew accidentally tossed out an exhibit at the Museum of
Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The exhibit consisted of 14,000
cigarette butts -- the amount a smoker produces in a lifetime -- crammed into
coffee cans. Said the artist, in defense of the cleaning crew, "(The butts)
didn't smell very good."
Set up hidden cameras
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
December 18, 1992
Michael J. Schmidt, 29, set up a hidden video camera at his home near Superior,
Wis., because he had been burglarized several times and thought he could catch
the culprits in the act.
The burglars came back and were captured on tape, which Schmidt turned over to
the sheriff.
Among the items the burglars took from Schmidt's house was a box containing
eight marijuana plants.
Schmidt was charged with misdemeanor drug possession.
Tied in an election
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 12, 1993
Richard Kyle won his Arizona House seat in November more easily than he had won
the Republican primary in September. He and his primary opponent, John Gaylord,
had tied and had agreed to settle things with one hand of five-card stud dealt
by the speaker of the Arizona House.
Kyle's pair of sevens put him into the general election.
Educational priority
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 12, 1993
Rhett Jacobs, Democratic candidate for the South Carolina House and a man who
listed "education" as his top priority, submitted a required campaign disclosure
form in October, handwritten, on which he detailed expenses for "filling fee," "campain
work" and "litature."
Stealing six barrels
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 12, 1993
Long Beach police arrested two small, skinny men in October and charged them
with stealing six 45-pound barbells from the Buffum-Downtown YMCA.
The men were struggling to keep the barbells in a small cart that kept tipping
over because they were not strong enough to steer it.
Kidnappers caught him
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 12, 1993
San Francisco police arrested Russell C. Sultan in July and charged him with
attempting to extort $23,000 from his mother and girlfriend by claiming to have
been kidnapped for ransom.
After tracing telephone calls, police, guns drawn, burst into a motel room to
find Sultan casually eating fried chicken and watching a 49ers football game.
Sultan said the kidnappers had merely left him alone for a while, and exclaimed
to the officers, "What took you so long?"
Destroying property
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 12, 1993
Raleigh, N.C., judge Don Overby, in several recent cases involving juvenile
theft, has forced the convicted kid to go home, retrieve his own most prized
possession, bring it back to Overby's courtroom, and watch while the judge
smashes it up.
Pathetic lawsuits
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 16, 1993
In 1989, a Union Bridge, Md., high school permitted a female student, Tawana
Hammond, 17, to try out for its football team under the pressure of a federal
statute that bars school discrimination on the basis of gender.
On her first scrimmage, Tawana, a running back, was tackled and suffered massive
internal injuries.
In October 1992, she filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the county board of
education for its alleged failure to tell her how dangerous football is.
Women pump gas now
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
January 16, 1993
Escondido attorney Ben Echeverria filed a $2 million lawsuit in August against
Texaco Inc. and a local gas station manager because station attendants were
pumping gas for women at self-service prices, but not for men.
The station almost immediately stopped its practice and forced women to start
pumping for themselves.
Home burglar survey
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 1, 1993
A survey of home burglars' work preferences published in Whittle Communications'
Special Report magazine revealed that 32 percent like to browse through family
photographs while on the job, 27 percent like to raid the refrigerator, and 7
percent watch TV.
Seventy percent of the 191 imprisoned burglars reported they like to limit their
jobs to a 20-minute maximum, 17 percent wondered what their victims were like,
and 59 percent said a dog in the home was the most effective burglary deterrent.
Sodom village gone
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 1, 1993
The Associated Press reported that the village of Sodom, Conn., disappeared,
like its biblical namesake.
Though it appears on maps, the AP writer interviewed residents of Sodom Road and
the Sodom Corner intersection, both hallmarks of the village of Sodom, and
discovered that everyone claims now to live in North Canaan
Stealing the camera
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 1, 1993
Raleigh, N.C., police charged Vernon Edsel Brooks, 34, with robbing a Radio
Shack in July, despite his foresight in disabling a video surveillance camera by
taking the camera with him as he fled.
Because he forgot to take the recorder to which the camera was connected, police
found a tape containing a full facial shot of Brooks reaching for the camera.
Drunk while stealing
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 1, 1993
James Macdonals and William Shoesmith, both 26, were sentenced to five years in
prison for bank robbery. According to his lawyer, Macdonald hated his robbery
work and had to drink before each job.
For what was to be the pair's last job, he got fall-down drunk and had to be
carried by Shoesmith into the bank to pull off the heist. The two were soon
captured.
Go home and wait
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 10, 1993
FBI and Florida authorities arrested Paul E. Flasher, 45, who had been sentenced
to five years in prison in 1980 for grand theft but who had never been jailed.
Flasher said he had gone home from the sentencing hearing in Tampa and "sat
tight," just as his lawyer had instructed, waiting for notification to report to
prison. Authorities forgot him for 12 years.
Huge criminal record
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 10, 1993
Dennis Payne, 30, was arrested as a pickpocket at a Jersey City, N.J., train
station, his 135th arrest in New Jersey and New York City since 1978. Police
said it took a computer more than a half-hour to print out Payne's arrest
record.
Making cars drive
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 17, 1993
Fort Erie, Ontario, Constable Paul Fletcher told reporters in December that a
man armed with a club tried to force a woman to drive him home with her to get
money for him, but that when he waited for her to unlock the passenger door from
inside, she sped away.
Steal little things
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
February 17, 1993
In July, a Jackson Center, Pa., woman reported that someone used a ladder to
climb into the second story of her home and that all that was missing was $10
worth of diapers, despite the presence of jewelry and antiques in the same room.
You aren't the worst
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Gerrad, a friend of mine, bought a computer, even though he had never even used
a typewriter before. After investigating the computer, he decided to call the
help line. A friendly voice explained step by step how his new machine worked.
All went well until the voice told him to press the space bar. After studying
the keyboard, Gerrad said; "I've got the latest model and it doesn't have a
space bar." But after further explanation, he managed to find it.
A week later, Gerrad again had problems and called the help line. An instructor
was then sent to his house for training. But after a few minutes, Gerrad's head
was spinning. "You don't need to go any further," he sighed, I don't understand
a thing."
To cheer him up, the instructor said: "Hey, there are people who understand a
lot less than you. Last week we had someone on the phone who didn't even know
where the space bar was!"
Ordering fast food
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
One night, a few co-workers at the computer data centre where I work stayed late
and we all started to get hungry. We decided to order in food by phone, but our
boss thought that, since we work with computers, it would be more appropriate to
order by Internet. After we contacted a fast food chain's web site and spent a
long time registering as new customers for the delivery service, a message
appeared on the screeen: "Thank you for your business. You will be able to order
food in three days."