xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

In many cities, the opening of a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop has been marked by fans queueing up several hours in advance, but Peter Bolland and his son, P.J. (both grown men), lined up 30 hours early for the store’s debut in Kitchener, Ontario, in November. (“(This) sounds so ridiculous,” said P.J.)

“It’s sick, disgusting and perverted. I know all these things (but) I can’t go to prison for the rest of my life … without seeing (some).” (spoken by confessed murderer Cory Stayner, offering police a deal in which he’d describe his crimes in detail if they’d give him a “good-sized stack” of child pornography to look at) (San Jose, Calif., July)

“It was like a ‘Blazing Saddles’ routine, because every time these (management) guys would move on their seats, you could hear flatulence.” (spoken by a participant at a September labor-management session in San Francisco, describing a union man’s prank of having placed a small flatulence-sound-producing device under the table during a Pacific Maritime Association negotiating session with the dockworkers union, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle)

“(M)any top businessmen spend more of their time in hotels than in their own home. … So when they get home, they like to re-create the hotel experience. … Many of my clients (for example) have their own mini-bars in their bedrooms. … They come to me (to make them) a hotel-style (closet).” (spoken by Arnold Chrysler, owner of Chrysler’s World of Hotel Decor, on trial in London in October for stealing 40,000 hotel coat hangers (the bottom part, useful only if affixed to the closet’s hanging bar)

Slow Crime Days: Two St. Petersburg, Fla., police officers were suspended in November after allegedly using their in-car terminals to send each other a total of 4,232 non-duty messages in a one-month period (about 10 messages each, per work hour).
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD