In Bradford, PA, J. Cruwe, 28, caught a small snake in his yard. As
a joke he placed the snake in a container which he handed to his wife.
She opened the container and, startled to see the snake, dropped it.
The excited and, as it turns out, poisonous, snake immediately bit Mr.
Cruwe on the shin. Mr Cruwe survived the wound and recovered after a
short visit to the local emergency room.
LONDON - A British woman who lost a mobile phone dialled the
number and heard it ringing inside her dog.
Rachel Murray, 27, left the cellular phone under her tree as a
gift for her flatmate, Tony Dangerfield, the Sun reported Friday.
But Dangerfield's bloodhound Charlie crept into the room and
wolfed down the mobile phone, leaving only a pile of torn paper.
After a frantic search for the phone, Murray obtained the number
from the phone company, dialed and heard muffled ringing from
Charlie's stomach.
The dog was taken to a vet, who advised Murray and Dangerfield
to let nature take its course. Twenty-four hours later, the phone
emerged - in perfect working order.
According to a report in the Wilmington (N. C.) Morning Star in
November, a dog was briefly, though improperly, admitted to the
local Kenan Auditorium with its owner to take in a performance of
the opera The Barber of Seville. (The owner took the dog away
after it started to bark.) Manager Don Hawley said one of his staff
members had allowed the woman to bring the dog in after she said
she was hearing-impaired and that the dog was a "hearing-ear dog."
In retrospect, said Hawley, "That was silly."
WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- A man who wanted to practice shooting
was hospitalized Monday after his dog shot him.
the unidentified man left his gun unattended in the yard of
his summer house to prepare a target when his dog accidentally
pulled the trigger while sniffing around, the PAP news agency
reported.
Surgeons removed five dozen pellets from the man's body, but
his wounds were not considered life-threatening. The incident
occurred in the northern town of Bytow.
While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti
came up to a railway line just as the crossing gates were coming
down. While he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat,
which the farmer tethered to the crossing gate. A few moments later
a horse and cart drew up behind Falatti, followed in short order by
a man in a sports car. When the train roared through the crossing,
the horse startled and bit Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be
trifled with, Falatti responded by punching the horse in the head.
In consequence the horse's owner jumped down from his cart and began
scuffling with the motorcyclist. The horse, which was not up to
this sort of excitement, backed away briskly, smashing the cart into
the sports car. At this, the sports car driver leaped out of his
car and joined the fray. The farmer came forward to try to pacify
the three flailing men. As he did so, the crossing gates rose and
his goat was strangled. At last report, the insurance companies
were still trying to sort out the claims.
Grand Rapids, MI
A local man had just bought a new Ford Explorer and, in one of those
male-bonding rituals, decided to do a winter duck hunting expedition
with his buddies. So they loaded the dog, the guns, the decoys, the
beer, etc. into the vehicle and headed out to a nearby lake. It is
common practice in Michigan to drive your vehicle out onto the frozen
lake. Further, it is common (if not illegal) to make a hole in the
ice for your decoys by using dynamite. The young man had a stick of
dynamite, but it had a short fuse - 20 seconds. Since it is not a good
idea to light the fuse, then drop the dynamite and run (after all, you
could slip & fall on the ice), he decided to throw it instead.
Sounds like the thing to do. Trouble is, after he tosses the stick of
dynamite, the dog chases after it, picks it up and starts to bring it
back, just like he's been taught. The men scream at the dog to drop the
(lit) dynamite, to no avail. Finally, in desperation, one of the men
grabs his shotgun and fires at the dog. Since the gun was loaded with
bird shot, the dog was not so much hurt as confused, so he ran and
crawled under the vehicle with the dynamite in his mouth.
Needless to say, the new Explorer is at the bottom of the lake, the
insurance company refuses to pay because it was an illegal use of
explosives, the first payment is due at the end of the month, and there
are 47 more payments to follow.
Political Ass
Brazilian police in the North-Western town of Pilar are
investigating the suspicious death of Frederico the Goat.
This is no mere crime of passion - politics are involved.
For not only was Frederico standing for mayor in Pilar, he
was well ahead in the opinion polls. Owner Petrucio Maia
set the goat on the campaign trail as a protest candidate
and thinks he was poisoned by political rivals because "He
had a lot of foam in his mouth". The poor beast would
have gone far.
An elephant addicted to illegally brewed liquor has been
on a rampage in India's northeastern state of Bihar, destroying
houses in the villages where the hooch is being fermented.
The Press Trust of India reported that the animal is lured out
of the forest by fumes billowing into its habitat from the bootleg
operations. It then smashes the stills, drinks the concoctions
and goes on rampages looking for more.
The villagers have nicknamed the drunken marauder "the excise
commissioner" and have appealed to authorities to capture it.
People in many Indian villages brew alcoholic beverages by using
tree leaves and locally grown herbs because they cannot afford
commerical liquor.
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force
pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what
they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local
penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out
a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along
it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn
their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when
the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their
heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a
slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The
pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony
and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand
penguins fall over gently onto their backs.
-- Audobon Society Magazine
It seems that a fellow was trying to explain to his hunting
buddies how he ended up in the hospital. Here is his story.
The fellow said his wife had brought her potted plants and
hanging baskets into the house for the winter. It so happened
that an innocent little green snake had crawled into one of the
plants and accidentally was carried into the house.
When the tiny reptile warmed up a bit, it became active and
slithered out onto the floor.
The fellow's wife saw it and screamed loudly as the snake
crawled under a sofa in the family den. The guy happened to be
taking a bath at the time. Hearing the scream, he leaped out
of the tub and ran naked into the den to see what had happened.
The wife pointed under the the sofa. The guy quickly dropped
on all fours to look for the snake when the family dog came up
and `cold-nosed' him from the rear.
Thinking it was the snake, the fellow fainted. His wife
thought he had suffered a heart attack and summoned an ambulance.
The ambulance crew rushed in, loaded the fellow on the stretcher
and started carrying him out when the snake came crawling out
from under the sofa. The surprise sighting of the serpent startled
the ambulance crew. They jumped and dropped the stretcher, breaking
the fellow's leg.
That's how he ended up in the hospital.
Stan Mazanek, a university of Arizona student got an invitation
in the mail from Globe Life Insurance Company to buy a special
student discount life insurance policy....$1. would buy him a
$5000. policy that would be active for six months.
He filled out the form on his pet guppy.
"I didn't do anything illegal," Mananek said. "The company did
not specify the insured had to be human, and I filled out every
blank with information that wouldn't possibly relate to a real
person.
Mazanek sent the application in with $1. A computer failed to
get the joke and issued policy number 3261057 to Fred Finn Mazanek,
age six months; weight: 30 centigrams; height: 3 centimeters;
military service: none; relationship of beneficiary to insured:
owner.
Ultimately the guppy died and Mazanek sent in a claim for $5000.
It was then Globe discovered it had insured a fish. Soon a Globe
Life vice-president arrived in Tucson, wondering if Mazanek was
serious. He was.
After some discussion, Mazanek was $650 richer. With the
settlement in his pocket, Mazanek took his wife out to dinner and
bought a replacement for Fred, now resting peacefully in an ice
cube in the refrigerator
Brasilia, Brazil -- A Brazilian woman is offering a $500 reward
for information leading to the return of her lost pet Scratchy, a
chicken that drinks milk and sleeps in a bed.
Globo newspaper said Irene Azevedo, 41, of Belo Horizonte, was
distraught and unable to sleep after Scratchy disappeared.
"She could be in somebody's pot by now. But she's not just a
chicken. She's a loving companion, a jewel," Azevedo said.
The woman has hired a private detective and placed advertisements
in local newspapers offering a $500 reward. Azevedo said she would
easily recognize her chicken. Scratchy drinks a saucer of milk
every night before retiring to a special cot.
LONDON) Birdwatchers who had travelled from all over Britain
to glimpse a rare migrating bird watched in horror as a giant
fish gobbled it down. The Sun quoted the bird watchers as saying
the 1.2-meterpike gulped the red-necked phalarope in one bite.
"It was like a scene from Jaws," one said. "One second the bird
was swimming and the next there was a snap and a splash and it
vanished." Only a few feathers remained.
Motorists on one of South Africa's busiest highways, between
Cape Town and Johannesburg, faces a new wildlife hazard: a band
of baboons who ambush them with showers of rocks.
Some Georgia poultry raisers have found a clean and lucrative
way to dispose of dead birds: They now raise alligators too.
San Francisco health officials have run ads likening cigars
to dog droppings in hopes of blunting the latest yuppie fad.
To Percy the Pigeon, who flopped down exhausted in a
Sheffield loft having beaten 1,000 rivals in a 500 mile
race and was immediately eaten by a cat.
The 90 minute delay in finding his remains and handing
his identification tag to the judges relegated Percy from
first to third place.
Facing an angry moose protecting her young in the woods, a
Norwegian politician did what came naturally: He used his
power of speech. His shouts chased the moose away, witnesses
said.
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