What are some strange but true news stories you recall?

A man got arrested for animal cruelty for beating his wife with an eel. In France. Decades ago. I read it in an archive.

G.O.P. Finally Claims Sequestration Is A Bad Idea—Admits Obama Is Not The Devil

Mississippi Finally Ratifies the Amendment to Ban Slavery — 148 Years Later

By Kharunya Paramaguru, Feb. 19, 2013

I don’t think Pope resigns should be such a big deal. He’s old, for all we know he is ill. I don’t get it.

@rebbel You took mine.

My favorite “News of the Weird” story from years and years ago was about a 93-year-old woman who filed for divorce from her husband of 62 years. She said she was giving up because she was tired of waiting for him to change.

I had that one posted on the refrigerator for a decade or more.

(Time details are approximate but close.)

Do you want to know my second favorite? It’s a little bit gross.

@bookish1 Hmm, sounds fishy, I bet he was a slippery customer, i’m guessing the atmosphere in court was electric…yeah, i’ll stop now!
@JLeslie I think the timeframe, 600yrs between resignations, makes it newsworthy all by itself.
@Jeruba Ha, good for her I say.

@ucme I accept that as reason enough.

Carry on.

OJ Simpson ticketed for speeding his boat through a manatee zone.

@rebbel @JLeslie I missed that headline. I think we best prepare for the endtimes. :0

Where the zombie guy who was wacked out on bath salts ate that bums face off in Florida.

@Only138 I remember that one, fucking gross…he didn’t even leave a tip!!

Antidepressants increasing suicidal thoughts.

I’m fairly sure that the developers of these wondrously disastrous drugs had the opposite intention, unless they have a Bizarro skew on what drives people to suicide: “Me am so happy that me am going to jump off of Mt. Everest!”.

@Jeruba – yes. I would like to hear your second story idea.

@Jeruba Mee too

It was another “News of the Weird” item—not my idea. I just happened to see it in the newspaper at a time when I was trying to lose weight, and I posted it on the refrigerator.

It seems that a woman who was seriously obese went to the doctor thinking that she had a tumor on her leg. On close examination it turned out that she had sat on a pork chop and it had embedded itself in her flesh, where it remained for several months before it was discovered and removed.

Let that be a lesson to you.

@Jeruba I wish you’d posted that request sooner, then i’d have eagerly answered in the affirmative.
Oh & you were right, that is gross, funny though.

What request, @ucme?

The Mailbox Bomber scared a lot of people in a post 9/11 world, and they simply thought he was a terrorist. What many missed was that he placed the bombs in such a way that on a United States map it would form a giant smiley face, and that images obvious connection to Fight Club.

I actually just read one about a woman who got arrested and charged with a misdemeanor use of 911 for calling it to ask for a deputy to bring her some cigarettes. Here’s an article about it.

The one belatedly tagged onto the end of your first response @Jeruba. I’d not noticed it upon returning to the thread, not until others had at least.
That’s okay though, just a small observation.

The blind guy that had been posting his letters into a dog poo bin, thinking it was a postbox, for years before realising his mistake. Here

@Leanne1986 Aww, bless the owld bugger, there is a lot of crap in the post though ;-}

Oh—yes, that was an afterthought, but I’m pretty sure it was posted before your reply appeared. I’d call it an offer, not a request. But minor, as you say.

Maybe I just didn’t see it, I just think it makes me appear a tad rude in my post immediately below yours. No reference to your “offer” is conspicuous by it’s absence, it’s all good though :¬)

Not really an odd story but an odd ad that caught my eye:

“Breast Augmentation – 50% off!”

Seemed somewhat contradictory.