Not News of the Week

If it’s Tuesday, then this must be more of all the news that’s not fit for print. It’s time for the Not News of the Week.

A 53-year-old softball player lost a line drive in the setting sun during a game in 2004. The ball hit him, breaking two fingers, cutting him for 20 stitches and smashing his sunglasses which damaged his right eye. Naturally, in this litigious society in which we live, the man has now filed a lawsuit. But he’s not suing the batter who hit the ball or the pitcher who lobbed it up or the bat manufacturer who made an implement of destruction that could crush a ball that hard. No, he’s suing the owner of the ballfield for not providing adequate protection from the dangers caused by the setting sun nor warning players of potential dangers caused by sunset. How, at 53-years-of-age, can someone not know that you won’t see small, round objects when staring directly into the sun? Just more proof that nothing is your fault anymore.

Last week, we had a story about a man so drunk that he broke the roadside breathalyser. This week, we found out about a Pennsylvania man who decided to get bombed on a weekday afternoon. He was found by a state trooper on the side of a highway giving what looked like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. Witnesses said that the man also appear to have conducted a séance at one point. I know some folks in the southern states are stereotyped as being regular eaters of roadkill but I don’t think they’re that concerned about how fresh it is.

Sometimes, making a dramatic entrance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. An 82-year-old woman had a little trouble parking her car and crashed through the front window of a hair salon. She says she accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake which caused her car to leap through the window and that she was very embarrassed by the whole episode. Well, if crashing through the window wasn’t embarrassing enough, she had to stay at the salon for her appointment. Yes, she got her haircut as they were towing her car out the shop’s front window. Now that’s embarrassing.

It wasn’t an April Fools joke so it’s understandable that people freaked when Orson Wells broadcast his infamous War Of The Worlds radio play. The mayor and citizens of a small town in Jordan has less of an excuse for being duped by an April Fools joke played on them by the local daily newspaper. The Al Ghad newspaper published a report saying that a UFO landed near the town of Jafr and lit up the night sky which sent citizens panicking into the streets. Now, anyone in the town would have noticed that all happening. Well, anyone except for the mayor of Jafr. He closed the town down for the day, deployed security forces to search for the aliens and nearly evacuated the town. When he was let in on the joke, suffice to say, he wasn’t a happy camper. The mayor is considering suing the newspaper (supposedly) for an erroneous report that caused him to scramble forces at great cost. Really, though, he’s suing to recover some of his dignity.

The American’s do a lot of bizarre things. One such thing is hunting Asian Carp on the Illinois River using a bow and arrow. Well, one carp didn’t take his fate lying down. While a group of friends were out fishing on the Illinois, a carp flew out of the river and slapped one of the bow and arrow fisherwomen. Fortunately for us, one of the crew had a camera and recorded the moment for posterity. I don’t care who you are, that’s gotta hurt.

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