WIRE STORIES

As I noted before, I've spent many precious work hours checking out bizarre wire stories from various news agencies. These are my all-time favorites so far:

1.)TURKEY-PENIS (AFP)
A retired Turkish worker attempting to cure his sexual impotence with a penis transplant from a donkey irritated his family so much that his son shot him in the leg...On two occasions he bought a donkey and amuptated its sexual organs, appealing in vain to medical staff in his home town and the health ministry in Ankara for a penis transplant. He was denied. Undeterred, he bought a third donkey, angering his family who were already exasperated by his obsession. Consequently, one of his six children shot him in the leg. When asked for comment, he replied, "For a long time now I have had sexual problems and I have spent all my pension funds to overcome them." He is waiting to recover from his gunshot wound so he can go out and buy a fourth donkey.

(This reminds me of the W.C. Fields line: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.")

2.)CLOWNING AROUND (AP)
An employee of a Toot N Scoot convenience store in McCandless, Penn. called police to report that a woman dressed as a clown and driving a minivan full of balloons pumped six dollars worth of gasoline and drove off. Police found the minivan in nearby North Park where the woman was performing for children. They told her to go back and pay for the gas. She did. But clerks called the police again to report she had threatened them. She faces a summary charge of disorderly conduct.

(I'm curious how she threatened them, and if she was still wearing the clown attire. In my mind, she tore into the Toot N Scoot parking lot with a look of rage contorting her greasepaint covered face. Her orange wig bounced up and down as stormed out of that minivan and stomped into the store, smacking the linoleum with her huge red shoes. She glanced around the place and grabbed the closest employee by the collar and snarled, "I'm gonna rip you a brand new asshole, buddy." )

3.)NETHERLANDS-SEX-PEOPLE (AFP)
An Amsterdam man suffered injuries after his girlfriend used a portable electric vegetable mincer on his genitals in a sex game that went wrong, police said Friday. The 51-year-old man was entertaining the woman, in her sixties, at his home Thursday night when the two wound up in the kitchen, drunk and naked. "For a joke" the woman decided to try applying the vegetable mincer-more normally used for preparing soups and stocks-to the man's private parts.

(The obvious question is--"How does that game go RIGHT?" Also, I like how the writer saw fit to explain what vegetable mincers are "more normally used for". Clarity is key.)

4.)ZIMBABWE-FROG-BREAST (AFP)
Zimbawean police have urged people not to panic over widespread reports that a number of women have died after being forced to breastfeed a frog in sorcery rituals. Police dismissed reports that a man in a luxury car, carrying a frog in a briefcase was picking up unsuspecting women and forcing them to breastfeed the creature. The Herald, Zimbabwe's main daily broadsheet reported that a number of women had lept from moving cars after suspecting that they were about to become victims of the businessman and his frog.

(I like that this guy is attempting to convey a professional, corporate image. No mystical robes and dangling amulets for him. He carries his voodoo frog in a briefcase, next to the management reports.)

5.)CHINA-MONKEY (AFP)
An endangered green monkey attacked an unsuspecting family in their Beijing home last week, injuring at least one member before being caught in a ceramic jar where it later died, the official media said Monday. The incident ocurred while the family was watching TV. Upon hearing a noise outside, the father opened the door and the monkey immediately lunged into the room. He fought off the attack, but the monkey tore into his head and severed three tendons before neighbors helped contain it in a ceramic jar outside in sub-zero weather. Three days later the family remembered the monkey and called the Beijing zoo.

(Three days later the family "REMEMBERED" the monkey? Seriously, this family must lead some exciting lives, if they can forget about a green monkey trapped in a ceramic jar outside. They must endure daily earthquakes, nightly catfights in the swimming pool and Sasquatch stomping around the backyard.)