Truly Odd Planet » Dumb Luck

Woman sets off riot in coat store

Chris — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:01:42 +0000

An Ohio woman, being driven around in a limousine, set off a riot shortly after she announced in a coat store that she’d won the lottery and would pay for everyone’s purchased.

The riot resulted not out of the sheer happiness of the stores customers, but over the fact that the woman was lying about having won the lottery. It was all a hoax.

She had announced on Tuesday after entering the store that she’d spend $500 on everyone at the Burlington Coat Factory. This prompted customers to gather at the cash registers and call their relatives.

When police arrived, 500 people filled the store and another 1,000 were outside.

Cashiers rang up sales before discovering the woman had no money. Angry customers grabbed clothes without paying.

The limo driver turned the woman in.

Police say she was arrested on three outstanding warrants but wasn’t charged for the coat store chaos pending a mental health evaluation.

Well .. that’s an interesting way to start a riot!

Rats with Backpacks

Chris — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:01:53 +0000

You know … I live in Toronto and a 39 day garbage strike just ended – Thankfully! Believe me, with everyone piling up garbage at the side of their houses and filling public garbage cans to overflowing the rat and raccoon population around here was growing!

I wouldn’t have been surprised to see one dressed like the one above – little back pack and all! LOL

The other day I opened up the compost bin that we have in our backyard to dump some kitchen scraps into it, and as I lifted the lid I saw movement! I threw the lid down and stepped back.

After stealing my nerves and getting a pitchfork, I walked back over to the compost bin and lifted the lid very carefully and slowly with the pitchfork. Whatever was in there was gone … probably out the newly chewed hole at the back of the composter!

I think it was a rat. Arghhhh!

Thank god our garbage strike is over! Unfortunately the pests who love garbage probably increased during this period so we’ll have to live with them for a while.

Some people take Monopoly too seriously

Chris — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:58:36 +0000

Did you hear this story?

A Michigan man has landed in jail all because a game of Monopoly went awry!

The 54 year old man was playing the game this past Saturday night with a female friend.

During the game he tried to buy Park Place and Boardwalk from her, but when she refused he got angry and hit her in the head and broke her glasses!

Chill out man! It’s just a game.

He’s been arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and battery.

Four tires fell off car all at once!

Chris — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:04:52 +0000

Imagine driving on the freeway behind a car that happened to lose all four of it’s wheels at the same time! Scary thought huh? Well this actually happened in early June to a driver in Switzerland!

He was driving his car along a busy motorway when his car lost all four wheels causing his vehicle to come to an immediate and likely jarring halt!

Apparently the cars tires had just been changed from winter tires to summer tires and the wrong bolts were used to secure the new tires! Luckily no one was injured when the accident occurred!

A pigeon in a conundrum

Chris — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:01:13 +0000

Wordless Wednesday

Hmmm … now how did this pigeon manage to get a whole bread crust wrapped around it’s body?

What a conundrum to be in!

I’ll bet that if it just spread it’s wings the bread would have broken off from around it’s body. We’ll never know though will we?

Woman got more than she paid for when she bought a used couch

Chris — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:26:13 +0000

Vickie Mendenhall recently bought a used couch for $27. At about the same time she started hearing a strange mewing sound in her home. She searched for days trying to find the source of the odd noise and eventually discovered a very hungry calico cat living in her sofa!

The discovery came via her boyfriend Chris Lund. He was sitting on the couch on Tuesday evening watching TV when he felt something move inside the couch. He quickly got up and move the couch away from the wall, lifted it up and there was a cat sitting in a small hole on the underside!

They’d purchase the couch at Value Village so they called the store but they hadn’t kept records as to who donated the couch.

Vickie then decided to take the cat to SpokAnimal Care – the shelter where she happens to work, so the cat could recover from it’s ordeal while they went to work contacting media outlets in the hope of finding the cats owner.

Sure enough, Bob Killion of Spokane showed up to claim the cat on Thursday after an acquaintance alerted him to a TV story about it.

Killion had donated a couch on Feb. 19, and his nine-year-old cat, Callie, disappeared at about the same time. So the cat might have been in the couch without food or water for close to a month! Poor thing.

Shark on the beach!

Chris — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:09:25 +0000

This young lady looks oblivious to the strange shark attack going on behind her doesn’t she?

Now that’s one big shark! Looks like he’s aiming for the guy on the beach – I wonder if he survived or not?

What the heck is this vehicle?

Chris — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:27:48 +0000

Ok, what’s your best guess on what this vehicle is supposed to be?

It looks like it was once a tractor, but it’s been modified. I’d swear that seat belongs on a ride around lawn mower? I guess this might be someone’s attempt at making their own ATV, but that front left wheel doesn’t look very stable.

What do you think they were planning to use this for?

Burned cemetery investors won’t rest in peace

Chris — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:56:16 +0000

Now here’s a new take on the pyramid scam …

In October, Dozens of people protested outside an insurance office in Shanghai, demanding the return of money lost in a scheme promising big returns on investments in memorial halls for ashes of the deceased.

The protesters, mainly retirees, had bought into investment products in the 1990s linked to returns on sales of cemetery plots and repositories for ashes that were later exposed as classic pyramid schemes.

The company, based in the province of Jiangsu which adjoins Shanghai, had been wound up as an illegal operation, but investors had not had a penny returned, protesters said.

State media said investors had tried unsuccessfully to sue a local branch of China Pacific Insurance, the country’s third largest insurer, for underwriting the company.

“When they sold us this product, they told us it would make better returns than having the money sitting in the bank. Now it has been 10 years and we still cannot get our money back,” said a 65-year-old woman surnamed Xu outside the offices of China Pacific Insurance in Shanghai’s financial district.

“You owe me money and you are a liar. You don’t even know how mean you are,” said a banner held by one of the protesters.

China issued rules last year reinforcing a ban on the trade in tomb futures, or speculating in the business of selling graves, after it bankrupted thousands of investors.

But traditional notions of filial piety and belief in the after-life have proved resilient, and have fueled a lucrative but poorly regulated funeral industry.

Woman thought she had a kidney stone but gave birth instead

Chris — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:23:56 +0000

When Juanita Stead complained of shooting pains in her lower back on New Year’s Eve, she thought she was passing a kidney stone.

Instead, she was giving birth to a baby boy.

The eastern Newfoundland woman says she didn’t realize she was pregnant until she was rushed to Carbonear General Hospital that night and an X-ray didn’t turn up any kidney stones.

“When I went back to emerg, the doctor was waiting for me and he said, ‘It’s no kidney stone.’ He said, ‘You’ve got a baby ready to be born,’ ” said the 36-year-old Stead.

“I said, ‘No, that can’t happen’ . . . I told him he had the wrong X-ray file.”

Six minutes later, seven-pound, 12-ounce Nicholas was born breech at 12:31 a.m. local time on New Year’s Day, making him among the first babies born in Canada for 2009.

“He came out bum first,” Stead said Wednesday, cradling the one-week-old child.

Doctors weren’t able to carry out a caesarean section because of Nicholas’s quick entry into the world, she said.

Hours before the sudden birth, Stead and her husband Terry, 35, went to her sister’s house for a New Year’s Eve family gathering.

As she explained her symptoms to Terry and her brother-in-law – who owns an ambulance service – the two men became increasingly convinced she was experiencing a kidney stone attack.

“Honest to God, I just don’t have words to explain it,” Terry said.

The Steads, who live in a two-storey home in the small outport of Port de Grave, N.L., say they had no reason to think Juanita was pregnant because she didn’t experience the usual telltale signs, such as morning sickness and kicking from the womb. She says her menstrual cycle remained regular throughout her pregnancy.

“People have been saying to me, same as I’ve been saying, ‘How could you not know you was pregnant?’ ” she said.

“Everyone is still in shock I think.”

This isn’t the first time a pregnancy caught the Steads off-guard.

Two-year-old Cameron was born six weeks premature in July 2006 in their home bathroom, weighing three pounds and 11 ounces. His birth was marred by complications and last September he underwent a bowel, liver and pancreas transplant at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

But the toddler now appears as rambunctious as any his age, running around inside the house and playing with his toys.

Nicholas is faring well also, sleeping and eating regularly despite growing attention from families, friends and the public, his mother said.

“Two little miracles meant to be.”

Friends and family have provided them with toys and clothing for the new baby, because they discarded Cameron’s old belongings months before Nicholas’s birth, she said.

Truly Odd Planet » Dumb Luck

Woman sets off riot in coat store

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