KID TAPPER
Ralph Conone, 68, was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, in March after witnesses identified him as the man who several times had walked up behind young children, punched them on the head when their parents weren’t looking and walked away as if nothing had happened. According to police, Conone confessed that he had been punching children in public since January because he liked the “excitement” of getting away with something.
SINGULAR CRIMES
In February, a one-armed man swiped a single cufflink from the CJ Vinten shop in Leigh-on-Sea, England, and in March, a one-legged man swiped a single Nike trainer shoe from a store in Barnsley, England. The one-armed man is still loose, but the one-legged man was arrested.
ITALIANS DON’T EAT PUSSY
A popular TV chef in Italy was fired in February after musing on the air about the historical popularity of gourmet cat meat. According to Beppe Bigazzi, 77, cat stew is best cooked after leaving the meat under running water for three days to tenderize it. “I’ve eaten it,” he said, “many times.” Bigazzi later explained that he was referring only to a tradition in Tuscany in the 1930s and 1940s and never intended to encourage eating cats today.
EXTRA DIGITS
(1) China’s Yangcheng Evening News reported in March that a 6-year-old boy in Ha’erbin City, with 15 fingers and 16 toes, had surgery to get down to 10 and 10. (2) In March, Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou Village in China’s Henan province, was reported to have a “rough patch” of skin on her forehead that had recently grown to a length of 2 1/2 inches in the shape of a horn. (However, dermatologists in the U.S. point out that the condition is not all that rare.) (3) In February, the parents of Deepak Kumar, 7, of Belhari in India’s Bihar state, sought financial help for surgery to remove the parasitic twin joined at the hip with the now-eight-limbed boy. (His father told an Agence France-Presse reporter that he rejected suggestions that Deepak remain as is so that villagers could worship him as a deity.)
CUSTOMER DISSERVICE
Supervisors at the Department for Work and Pensions in Carlisle, England, issued a directive in March to short-handed staff on how to ease their telephone workload during the busy midday period. Workers were told to pick up the ringing phone, recite a message as if an answering machine (“Due to the high volume of inquiries we are currently experiencing, we are unable to take your call. Please call back later”) and immediately hang up.
BEST SEX ED CLASS EVER
The city health office in London, Ontario, created an online sex-education game that officials hope will appeal to teenagers in that its messages are delivered by a cast of iconic superheroes. According to a February report by Canwest News Service, the players are Captain Condom (who wears a “cap”), Wonder Vag (a virgin girl), Power Pap (“sexually active”) and Willy the Kid, with each fighting the villain Sperminator, who wears a red wrestling mask and has phalluses for arms. The characters answer sex knowledge questions and, with correct answers, obtain “protection,” but a wrong one gets the player squirted with sperm.
INCOMPETENT CRIMINALS
(1) William Edmunds, 32, was charged with DUI in March when his car weaved up to the guard gate at the loading dock for the Montgomery County, New York, jail and he asked if this was the Canadian border crossing at Niagara Falls (more than 250 miles away). (2) Travis Neeley, 19, was arrested in Lake City, Florida, in March for burglarizing a car, caught red-handed by the owner who used the remote control to lock Neeley inside. Neeley tried several times to unlock a door and exit, but each time, the owner relocked it before Neeley could get out, and he finally gave up and waited for police.
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