You can't make this stuff up

[Patricia]

Every so often I read something that gives me an idea for a story. Other times (and this is one of them) I read something that's true, but just so bizarre it'd never be believed in fiction. Peta outdoes its previous missteps with one related to O.J. Simpson:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01...

At first I thought it was something put out by The Onion.

If interested, please use this thread to post other true reports too strange to use in a novel or short story.

[J.A.]

This is why The Onion doesn't seem as funny anymore. Reality is just hard to parody these days; it's so inherently ridiculous. :)

How about this one:

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.ac...

A drunk driver hits and kills a kid. He then turns around and sues the parents arguing it's their fault because the kid wasn't wearing a helmet.

[Patricia]

Years ago there was a report of a burglar suing the homeowner (and winning!) because a booby-trap he'd set up injured the burglar.

[Claudine]

Patricia wrote: "Years ago there was a report of a burglar suing the homeowner (and winning!) because a booby-trap he'd set up injured the burglar."

A friend of mine who owns a gun legally with all the relevant permits shot an intruder in his home a good few years ago. The thief sued him in court for medical expenses and trauma and won quite a large settlement. The cops told him when they came out to arrest the intruder that he should have killed him.

[Patricia]

Cases like that leave me screaming at the courts. Do you happen to know if there was a jury or if it was just a judge?

[Andre Jute]

There was a case in the UK where a farmer was robbed, beat up the burglar when the man tried to assault him, and was condemned for it by magistrates and warned that they would jail him if he did it again. The burglar returned, was caught by the farmer, and taunted him that he could do nothing. The farmer shot and killed him. He was jailed for it and it was several years before a new Home Secretary decided it was a miscarriage of justice and freed the farmer. Meanwhile he'd lost his farm and his life was in ruins, because the courts (and the police, who tried to get the farmer's firearms license removed) appear to believe their function is to protect criminals rather than their victims.

When I saw that on television, I said, "He should have killed the thug the first time, then there would have been only one story."

[Katie]

We had a case here where an old man (late 70s) and his wife were burgled. The burglar bashed the old man up, then went to start on his wife, so the old man shot him in the leg. I'm glad to say, the old man got off with a caution, but anyone seeing his battered face on TV would have been on his side.

[Patricia]

I'm on his side without seeing it.

[Andre Jute]

Me too. I wonder why the judge thought he should caution the man. I would've thought congratulations on his quick thinking and bravely restrained action were in order.

[K.A.]

Kentucky has a 'castle law' (which is what people call it) every so often an elderly person will shoot and kill a burgler but they are NEVER charged.

[Patricia]

Yum. A refreshing glass of donkey semen followed by a chaser of urine:

http://www.tmz.com/2012/01/26/fear-fa...

[Katie]

I'm not going to even think about what Patricia wrote.

I'm just here to point out that every time I see this thread, I read it as 'You can't make this stuff-up.'

[K.A.]

Not going to look. I'll puke.

[Andre Jute]

Too much speaking in the porcelain telephone altogether. We'll all be so slender and elegant.

[Sharon]

Fear Factor looks like it should be named Stupid Factor.

LOL, Andre. Good thing I have reasonably good genetics, I hate having to use that telephone and avoid it at all costs. Though I'm pretty sure that donkey stunt would have done it for me.

The donkeys, however, must have had a pretty good time...

[Patricia]

"The donkeys, however, must have had a pretty good time... "

That remark got me laughing.

[Sharon]

That's nice to hear, Patricia, because it is usually the rest of you lot who make me laugh!

[Christopher]

Gah...the lengths people will go to in order to obtain their thirty seconds in the spotlight. The barbarians are within the gates.

We have a case currently running in our county where a farmer cleaned out the man-made ditch on the edge of his ranch (within his property line) in order to allow rainwater to flow freely and not jump across the adjoining road, thus causing traffic hazards, etc. The Fish and Wildlife Department have slapped him with immense fines for tampering with a "navigable body of water." That's a deliberately ambiguous term from the Clean Water Act that allows them to basically regulate any water short of your bath tub.

[Patricia]

Everyone should pull the gutters off their buildings, then.

[Christopher]

Heh. In my town, that would earn you a visit from the Stormwater guys.

[Claudine]

LOL So not going to click on Patricia's link.

On my friend - just a magistrate. We don't have a jury system here, unless you count the informal "courts" that spring up from time to time in the black township areas where people squat in shacks built illegally on land they don't own. From time to time there are news stories of some poor sod beaten to within an inch of death for a crime he or she may not have committed by residents of these townships. It's vigilante justice at it's best. Or worst.

Over Christmas I read a followup article in the community newspapers servicing the town my inlaws live in. The town dam that feeds into the drinking water system was contaminated by faeces and other dirty water sources when one of their neighbours illegally connected his borehole water to the dam water. He received a slap on the wrist and the town muni pulled his borehole apart to destroy the illegal connection. The muni ended up causing huge damage to the main water pipes servicing 4 blocks of houses which had to be replaced in the weeks leading up to the Christmas season when the town itself is overrun by more tourists than actual year round residents. The culprit's borehole is still operating, not connected to the muni drinking water supply. They managed to mangle his entire backyard, destroy the wrong piping and causing more problems than they fixed.

[Patricia]

Sitting here wondering what a borehole is...

[Andre Jute]

It's easy to spot a borehole. Drive southwestwards until you cross the Texas border, then look for a windmill. It looks like an aeroplane propeller on a tower. It stands over a borehole, pumping up water when the wind blows.

[Claudine]

Andre is so descriptive. Basically a rather large drilling machine bores a hole in the ground until groundwater is reached and voila you have your own well of water that is free.

[Andre Jute]

The interesting thing is how you decide where to drill. For this you hire a psychic called a dowser. He/she/it walks around with an inverted V of twig held loosely in their fingertips until it bends over, and where that happens is where you drill. Works often enough to keep dowsers in demand.

Not a lot of people know that -- Sir Michael Caine, food guru

[Patricia]

That sounds like a job I could do. Not well, mind you, but I could fake it and then get out of town before the hole comes up empty.

[K.A.]

Mom was a great Dowser.

Oddly enough, it runs in our family.

[Sharon]

Andre said: He/she/it walks around.

I usually look at ROBUST first thing in the morning. Most often my I get my quota of daily laughs and I get on with things, juices flowing...

I find the concept of Dowsing fascinating. Patricia, I believe anyone could do it, it is the stick that does the work, but you would have to believe in it. And like anything else, yes, anyone could do it, but anyone can learn to play the piano too but only some are talented enough to do so for a living.

[K.A.]

My cousins use wire rod, in an "L" shape to find underground cables and pipes, too.

Very strange to see it work.

[Sharon]

It is very cool and very nature-based...

[Patricia]

I have a friend who does rain dances. Never works.

[Claudine]

Patricia wrote: "I have a friend who does rain dances. Never works."

Tried that once. Ok so we tried recreating the dancing in the rain Fred Astaire sequence. It was the beginning of the 90s. We were young, we were drunk or high, it was late...or early morning...or late early morning. It rained. We couldn't dance.

[Patricia]

Speaking of being high, my daughter was on a golf course late at night when she was on LSD. The sprinkler system came on. When she saw all that water springing from the ground, she thought it was rain and, as she so delicately put it, "gravity was fucked."

[Patricia]

I didn't remember that Fred Astair was in Singing in the Rain (is that the movie you mean?). I thought it was Gene Kelly. Maybe it was both.

[Claudine]

When I went clubbing in the late 80s early 90s the favourite thing djays back then loved to do was throw poppers (usually E) into the aircon systems. You inhaled without realising it and by the time you left the club you were either still high or drunk or a combination of both. I've never tried anything harsher than pot. LSD....that would weird me out completely! I have no idea who it was, it was the dance scene from Singing in the Rain. It could have been Gene Kelly.

[Patricia]

I'm so innocent, I've never even tried pot. I'm holding out for the day when Demerol becomes a legal snack.

[Claudine]

It's not? Wonder what it tastes like with marmite....

[Andre Jute]

I wonder if you can get Martmite on the National Health.

After all, it is quite as addictive as heroin.

Or Coca-Cola.

[K.A.]

That was a cool dance sequence. It must have taken tremendous concentration. If I even WALK in the rain, every instinct says 'run for cover.'

[Patricia]

I love to walk in the rain. Haven't tried dancing, though. We're getting rain tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it.

Winter has been surprisingly mild this year, and now the early spring was predicted today so I'm smiling.

[K.A.]

Temps in the 60's today. I was still feeling chilled. Should have sat in the sun for a few hours, but didn't.

I'm looking forward to spring too. I'm buying goslings.

[Claudine]

Kat, what we did didn't qualify as dancing by any means! :D

We've been having heat wave after heat wave here, temps from mid 30C to upper 30C just where we live while elsewhere temps have been above the mid 40C range. Last night we had a bit of rain - we're in a summer rainfall area - which didn't even make an attempt at cooling the weather down. Muggy and hot, just the way I detest it.