Making us laugh: real news stories

The problem with falling asleep with the radio on is that you are never sure if you actually heard something or if you dreamt it — stories so preposterous that surely they cannot actually be true. So you spend time the next day checking the Internet and, if confirmed, you get a second laugh. Here are a few examples:

On the little but exclusive island of Jersey off the French coast, a supermarket customer complained that she had been grossly overcharged for fruit and vegetables, weighed at the checkout cash register station.

When the manager investigated — or to put it in his words he “handled the situation� — the overcharging was found to be accurate and a possibly serious offence. It seems (and there is no polite way to say this; you should have heard the radio announcer try and explain) that the lady doing the weighing and tapping cash register had an ample bosom and her “largesse� was leaning on the scales — tipping the scales, if you see what I mean. The manager has said he will ensure such a thing does not happen again by making “adjustments.� To what and to whom, it is not clear.

Then last winter there was the Chicago fellow who preceded his wife on holiday to Florida. Getting settled in to the hotel, he sent her an e-mail, mis-typing the address. The lady who received it was a recent widow of a pastor. She was finishing cleaning up from the wake when she read the message and fainted: “Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. P.S. Sure is hot down here. �

Russia, that bastion for the extreme, has long been known as an unfriendly place in which to be sent to jail (to put it mildly). Most of their jails are concrete blocks with no windows, loads of steel doors and little, if any, outdoor activities. So, in an effort to modernize, they decided — no, not to build anything new and humane — they decided to install sun beds. Of course, the privilege to use the sun beds is limited to good behavior. Only the best warden’s pets get to look like Sen. Boehner!

What happens when a particular make and model of car or truck becomes popular with gangsters, especially violent gangsters? The Chrysler 300 has long been associated with the rap music crowd, not to mention gangs and drug dealers. Chrysler spends loads of money avoiding that image!

But the hardest hit is the Ford pickup favored by the Mexican drug cartels called the Ford Lobo. Sales have dropped off so sharply that Ford is having to give up the model in Mexico entirely. Seems every evening news video of the most recent shoot-out in the streets features the same model truck, again and again. Ah, the power of unwanted advertising.

There are the two towns I’d like to vote as seriously  progressive: Truth or Consequences, N.M., and Trundle, N.S.W., Australia.

Hot Springs, N.M., renamed itself  Truth or Consequences (known locally as T-or-C) after the TV popular show of the 1950s to attract tourists and the show’s master of ceremonies for their annual parade.

Successful for over 50 years, they recently had another makeover, deciding to attract people with no kids and double incomes. Outside of town they put up signs: “Gays Welcome!�

Did it work? Yup. Was there a previous gay community there? Nope. Just good business folk running the town.

On the other hand, Trundle is a little hamlet 360 miles outside of Sydney, Australia, with a diminishing population after years of drought. To keep from going bankrupt and becoming a ghost town, they rounded up the empty houses (tax bills unpaid, people moved away to find work) and advertised:  “Are you handy with a paint brush and hammer? Keen to experience rural living?â€�

For the cost of $1 per week, families are being given abandoned farmhouses to rent. Yes, $1 a week.

Interested families need to fill out an application form that asks why they would like to live in Trundle as well as what they hope to offer a rural community, and send it in along with a family photo.

 People who get to rent will need to be prepared to roll up their sleeves and apply “a bit of elbow grease … Some of the houses need a bit of a clean and a bit of love but they’re beautiful old houses,â€� a town leader said. Now, what I want to know is, do they have high speed Internet? Watch for the stampede.

And lastly: “Police in Holland think that a foot found washed ashore on the beach may match be related to a foot that washed ashore 400 miles away in Norwich, UK. However, it is thought to be unconnected to a third foot washed up in France.�

Peter Riva, formerly of Amenia Union, lives in New Mexico.

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