Gecko CPR
A man from Australia might have saved a tiny gecko’s life after he fished the lizard out of his beer at a pub and then performed CPR on the animal when it seemingly stopped breathing. The man thought staff at the Amble Inn in Corindi Beach, New South Wales in Australia were pulling a prank on the regular customer when he spotted the gecko in his beer. But when he learned it wasn’t a prank, the man sprang into action to revive the lizard. After performing chest compressions on the gecko, it was revived, but it’s still unclear whether the gecko was just playing dead as a defense mechanism.
Winning the pot
In Toronto, Canada, an 8-year-old participant in a youth hockey tournament won a raffle prize decidedly above his age appropriateness bracket — $200 worth of marijuana products. Now his grandfather is trying to throw cold water on such prizes being offered at youth tournaments. “All he saw was like chocolate and chocolate fondue and he put a ticket in this bag,” the grandfather said. The prize included various chocolate edibles, vanilla chai, and other products stamped with the octagonal THC symbol of legal cannabis. There was also a pipe and lighter. When the boy’s family told him that he couldn’t have the prize he won, he was reportedly angry. “My grandson thought he won a great prize. ‘Dad, I won chocolate.’ ‘No, son, there’s bad drugs in the chocolate.’ How do you explain that to a kid?” the grandfather said. The Dawson Creek Minor Hockey Association claimed the prize was marked as being for adults. Better luck in a few years, kid.
When not to dial 911
An Ohio woman felt she was facing an emergency and got on the phone to 911. Her crisis? Her parents, who paid for her cell phone service, told her they were cutting that off. Police in the town of Massillon didn’t share the woman’s sense of urgency and told her not to call about her cell phone problems. But the 36-year-old woman persisted and was then arrested. According to jail records, the woman repeatedly called emergency dispatchers, was told to desist, then called back two hours later and “was belligerent and stated that she believed [her loss of cell phone service] to be a legitimate issue.” She was charged with disrupting police services, a fourth-degree felony. No word on what phone she actually used to call 911.
No … you do it
An animal control company in Richmond, Virginia, recently took up an unusual assignment: removing an eight-foot beehive from an apartment, along with over 80 pounds of honey. Virginia Wildlife Management and Control said in a statement that they removed the hive of Italian bees from the ceiling of a Richmond living room in an apartment that’s currently between tenants. Company owner Rick Perry told the Charlotte Observer that the hive, probably about two years old, was big enough to support between 100,000 and 150,000 bees but that it wasn’t fully occupied. He also said it was very unusual to find a hive of this size inside a building and suggested the bees had probably gotten in through holes in the siding and found a home between the rafters and sheet-rocked walls. Alas, the hive could not be saved because an extensive search for the queen bee came up empty, Perry said.
Long lost purse
A purse that was lost by a student from 1957 was discovered recently at a middle school in Ohio in a space between a row of lockers. North Canton City Schools stated that custodian Chas Pyle at North Canton Middle School was reattaching the trim at the end of a row of lockers when he found the purse, after which the school spent months trying to track down the owner. But sadly former student Patti Rumfola for whom the purse belonged to had passed away in 2013. The school district was able to contact Rumfola’s five children to give them a glimpse of their mother’s life as a teenager back in 1957. The purse included a comb, makeup, 26 cents, a library card, and membership cards to the YMCA and American Junior Red Cross, as well as black and white photos of friends, family members, and a family dog. Rumfola graduated in 1960 and went on to have a long career as a teacher.
