SENSE AND NONSENSE

1979 Sense and Nonsense

Lately I have been into collecting news oddities. This week I would like to share some of the recent absurdities that have me firmly convinced that “People arc the strangest of chickens”. That quote I believe is from Daffy Duck – or was it Reginald Rooster?

• The death of Pegleg the Monkeyman: Pegleg panhandled for years in a Washington park for nickels and dimes. Upon his death it was discovered that he was far from poor. He held over 300,000 dollars worth of lucrative stocks, as well as a large investment in a thriving topless restaurant business. In his later years he had confined his begging to the warmer months of the year. During the off-season he had resided at his palatial mansion in Pensacola, Florida.
• The couple in the Stales who are compatible about one thing – they both want a sex change: She wants to be a “he ” and he wants to become a “she “.
• God is now legally a person: The R.C.M.P. inadvertently overheard an accused person’s voice through a microphone. He was heard to say “Please God. let me get away with it just this once!” The statement was ruled to be inadmissible in court. It was a private conversation protected by the Canadian Criminal Code, and should not have been intercepted by police without judicial authority. The man’s prayer was answered, and he was subsequently acquitted.
• The problem of Shelley Ball, Edmonton murderess, who was originally “Sheldon” Ball of Chilliwack, B.C.: The judge ruled his hormone treatment continue in jail, and that the federal government pay for the surgical operations necessary to transform the still-mostly-male Ball, to a woman. What to do with the semi-lady after complete transformation? Ball had worked as a female prostitute, and according to newsmagazine reports was “getting along fine” in an all male penitentiary. Would Ms. Ball get along as well in Kingston, the only jail in Canada for long term female prisoners?
• The lady who fell out of her hotel window: (I’m not sure whether or not she survived) Her husband explained that she had been bouncing on the waterbed and bounced right out the window!
• Finally, the story from Britain about the man in a raincoat: The man had devised a truly effective method of extracting money from tardy bill-payers. He had aged the entrails of animals, their hearts, livers, kidneys etc. until they became rank. From this he had extracted “a very smelly mixture” which he carefully permeated his overcoat with. He would enter the sometimes plush offices of delinquent debtors wearing the malodorous apparel. The offenders would usually “pay up” in record time! Someone finally decided that the smell was so bad it had to be a crime and the police were called in. The police confiscated his overcoat.