July 2009 Archives

He's Probably Glad He Held Onto That Get Out Of Jail Free Card

A Michigan man who just wanted to take a walk on the Boardwalk instead skipped right past Go and off to jail last week. According to the Detroit Free Press, Kenneth Reppke allegedly assaulted his Monopoly opponent when she wouldn't part with Boardwalk and Park Place, hitting her in the head and breaking her glasses. There is no official word on what Reppke was offering in the deal, but let's face it, if it was anything less than all three oranges and a fat stack of hundreds, he should probably feel lucky that she didn't hit him.

Raging against the diabolical turns of luck in a typical game is, of course, a time-honored if unsanctioned Monopoly tradition, right up there with the Free Parking bonus. But you don't often hear of a tantrum rising to a level requiring police intervention. Perhaps Reppke was already staring at a board full of opponents' houses and hotels, while he coaxed a meager income out of the dark purples and one utility.

No truth to rumors that drunken Bookmobile driver is to blame

It's summertime, school is out, and kids everywhere are being shipped off to the library to enrich their minds with . . . the sounds of a seven-car pileup in the parking lot? In Norwood, Massachusetts, it appears that just such an unusual soundtrack enlivened Monday morning's reading activities.

What could cause such carnage at the local library? Was everyone rushing to be the first to browse the August issue of National Geographic? Is there an eighth Harry Potter book hitting shelves that we never knew about, perhaps?

Actually, no. It appears, according to the Daily News Transcript, that an 81-year-old library patron smashed into 6 other cars all by himself on his way out of the lot. He must have had some killer summer beach novels that he simply had to get home and start in on right away. Or, it could be that, as the driver claims, he simply accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake, accelerating into a row of cars as a result.

"Are You Ready to Get Covered in Someone Else's Vomit, Fargo?!!"

You may not find it anywhere in a guide to good manners, but one unwritten etiquette rule is this: Vomiting on other people is the walk-off home run of social faux pas, minus all the cheering. If it happens, you just go home. It's all over.

But don't try telling that to Justin Krohmer, an off-duty sheriff's deputy whose dinner made the kind of encore that the people in front of him weren't clamoring for, at a Kenny Chesney concert in Fargo, N.D. last month. The throw-up led to a throw-down involving Krohmer, his mom, and local police.

According to a police report and the story as reported by WDAY-Fargo, if a concertgoer vomits at the Fargodome (where the show was held), the venue's policy is to ask that person to leave.

The Krohmer Family Handbook says otherwise.

No Amount of Hot Air Can Get a Bad Idea Off the Ground

The Hindenburg wasn't an unmanned, 13-foot long, remote-controlled zeppelin. And it wasn't on its way to aiding a prison escape attempt when it crashed. You can't get chills from an eerie absence of similarity, so let's just call this a personal disaster for one imprisoned drug trafficker.

Spanish police officials announced last week that they had foiled an elaborately unsuccessful escape attempt at a Canary Islands prison, involving an Italian prisoner they are calling "Giulio B".

The 52 year-old Giulio was in jail after he was caught transporting over 400 pounds of cocaine in a seaplane, the kind of aircraft that made little Tattoo tug on the sleeve of Mr. Roarke's tuxedo on Fantasy Island.

It's a Sexually Explicit Day in the Neighborhood

On the Neighborhood Curmudgeon Growth Chart, there's a clear pattern: the older they are, the less subtle their displays of intolerance. Michael Buck of Pennsylvania is only 27 years old, but that added up to about 135 in Neighborhood Curmudgeon Years, after he was arrested for using loud porn to keep his neighbors' kids away from his house.

Buck didn't like all the rampant playing and bike-riding taking place on his "cul-de-sac", which is actually French for "bottom of the bag", a term that best describes the depths Buck lowered himself to in finally driving the kids away.