What could go wrong? Canadian company Bad Axe Throwing announced in June it is bringing its unusual entertainment concept to Denver. It's "like darts, but on steroids," says founder Mario Zelaya. Customers provide their own food and beer and learn how to throw axes at targets. "We'll be bringing along the competitive league side as well. That means that folks in Denver can sign up ... and compete at a global level," Zelaya said. [Denver Business Journal, 6/7/2017]

Smooth Reactions

-- Did you say french fries or FRESH fries? Eiram Chanel Amir Dixson, 25, made a point of ordering fresh french fries at a Coon Rapids, Minnesota, Wendy's drive-thru in May. When the exchange between the dissatisfied Dixson and a Wendy's worker escalated, the employee threw a soda at Dixson, and Dixson fired back by spraying Mace through the drive-thru window. Police charged Dixson with one count of using tear gas to immobilize. [WCCO, 5/19/2017]

-- Rachel Borch, 21, of Hope, Maine, was out for a run in June when a raccoon attacked her. Thinking quickly, Borch grabbed the animal and, despite being bitten, ran to a puddle on the trail and held its head underwater until it drowned. (BONUS: Borch's father retrieved the dead raccoon and delivered it for rabies testing in a Taste of the Wild dog food bag.) [Bangor Daily News, 6/14/2017]

Insult to Injury

It was dark in the wee hours of June 30 in Jacksonville, Florida, and Cedric Jelks, 38, probably never saw the loaded gun on the driver's seat of his car as he got in, but he certainly felt it after the gun went off, wounding his manhood. When police investigating the report of a gunshot wound arrived at the hospital Jelks was taken to, they added possible firearms charges to his pain after discovering Jelks had a prior conviction for cocaine possession. [News4JAX, 6/30/2017]

Why Not?

A driver in Zhenjiang, China, took drive-thru service to the next level on June 10 when he carefully pulled his tiny automobile through the front doors of a convenience store, requested a package of potato chips and a bottle of yogurt, paid for his purchase and reversed through the doors with the cashier's guidance. Surveillance video shows the cashier waving and saluting as the car pulls away. He posited that the driver might have been avoiding getting out of his car in the rain. [The Straits Times, 6/17/2017]

Finer Points of the Law

-- A restaurant owner near Florence, Italy, was ordered to pay 2,000 euros in fines in June after judges in Italy's highest court declared it illegal to keep lobsters on ice in restaurants because it causes them undue suffering. "The suffering caused by detaining the animals while they wait to be cooked cannot be justified," the judges ruled. [Reuters, 6/16/2017]

-- In a fit of law abidance, a resident of Yorkshire, England, called that country's emergency phone number to report that Queen Elizabeth II was not wearing her seatbelt as she departed the Palace of Westminster on June 21 after delivering her traditional speech at the State Opening of Parliament. Police warned that the 999 system is meant to be used only for emergencies. [United Press International, 6/23/2017]

Bright Ideas

Smoke bombs aren't just for celebrating our nation’s birth! Mike Tingley of Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, burned his garage to the ground on July 3 when he used smoke bombs to try to rid the structure of a bees’ nest. When firefighters from three townships arrived, fireworks stored in the garage were shooting into the sky. "We really weren't going to celebrate the Fourth of July so much," Tingley said. His home, which was not attached to the garage, was not damaged. [MLive.com, 7/3/2017]

Oops!

Jerry Lynn of Ross, Pennsylvania, is continually haunted by the result of a minor mishap 13 years ago while drilling a hole in the wall of his living room. During his project, an alarm clock fell through the hole and to the floor behind the wall. Since then, the alarm sounds dutifully at 7:10 p.m. (standard time) every day. [Fox News, 6/20/2017]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Ventura County, California, sheriff's officers charged three produce workers with grand theft fruit after they were caught making unauthorized cash sales of avocados from a ripening facility. Joseph Valenzuela, 38, Carlos Chavez, 28, and Rahim Leblanc, 30, liquidated up to $300,000 worth of off-the-books avocados. "It's a big product here in California," said Sgt. John Franchi. "Everybody loves avocados." [The Associated Press, 6/17/2017]

Fashion Emergency

-- To beat June's record heat, male students at Isca Academy in Exeter, England, protested the school's no-shorts rule by wearing the same uniform skirts the girls wear. One boy said the skirts were "quite refreshing." Another enjoyed the "nice breeze." [NPR, 6/23/2017]

-- And farther south, in Nantes, France, bus drivers adopted the same skirt-wearing strategy to oppose the bus company's strict no-shorts policy. Temperatures in the region have reached record highs this year, and female drivers are allowed to wear skirts. The company responded by allowing "shorts that correspond to the uniform's color scheme of black and beige." [United Press International, 6/22/2017]

News That Sounds Like a Joke

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy reported in June that as many as 16.4 million Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. In fact, the center's most frequently asked question on its website is, "Does chocolate milk come from brown cows?" (The answer is no.) Almost half of respondents to the center's survey weren't sure where chocolate milk comes from at all. [IFLScience, 6/16/2017]

Crime Report

A Spencer's store at Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock, Arkansas, took on a Jerry Springer vibe on June 21 when a disgruntled customer tried to steal a stripper pole. A Spencer's employee chased the woman into the mall and in the ensuing struggle was bitten by the customer, who then relinquished the stripper pole and ran away. At press time, the biter was still at large. [Associated Press, 6/22/2017]

Too Much Time on Their Hands

Awesome! An industrious group of Russian mechanics created a huge fidget spinner by welding parts of three cars together in the shape of the ubiquitous toy. The Garage 54 team, based in Novosibirsk, tried spinning the creation with one person in each car, but eventually had better luck with just one driver. [United Press International, 6/22/2017]

Recurring Themes

Two unidentified thieves managed to elude capture even after one of them nearly lost his pants during a Wellington, Florida, car break-in. The man, caught on a security camera June 18 while running back to a getaway car, tripped over his pants and landed facedown, clearly yelling, "My pants fell!" He managed to make it to the vehicle, and the thieves have yet to been identified. [Fox News, 6/22/2017]

Divine Revelations

Honduran housewife Iris Suyapa Caceres Castellanos "felt something coming into my body from the soles of my feet" after finding a flour tortilla with a likeness of Jesus Christ. Since the discovery on June 14, Castellanos' home in Danli has been flooded with pilgrims who want a look at the holy tortilla, including Olga Marina, 71, who said: "You look at the little eyes, the little mustache and his hair ... can you imagine? It's a miracle." Castellanos hopes to preserve the savior-y tortilla for the rest of her life. [Daily Mail, 6/23/2017]

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

A brigade from the Sawang Boribun Fire Rescue Center in Pattaya, Thailand, was called to a local hospital on June 24 when doctors needed help extricating a patient from two metal rings stuck on his penis. The patient, 33, who gave his name as Wirat, first said he didn't know how the rings had gotten there, but later admitted that he had been "experimenting" with them. When doctors couldn't dislodge the sex toys, they turned to firefighters, who worked for 30 minutes using pliers and cutting tools to remove the rings. [Daily Mail, 6/26/2017]

Spooky

A couple in Scotland have resorted to offering 50,000 pounds ($57,000) for a live-in nanny to care for their two young children after five previous nannies have quit in the last year citing "supernatural incidents." The homeowners describe the property as "lovely, spacious ... with spectacular views," but admit they were told the house was haunted before they bought it. Richard Conway, CEO of Childcare.co.uk, the website where the job is offered, said: “The family has assured us that no harm has come to anyone living in the house, however the nanny will have to have a strong disposition.” [The Telegraph, 6/14/2017]

Tourists and father-son duos looking for out-of-this-world bonding experiences are paying up to $50,000 for the opportunity to "hunt" feral hogs from helicopters in Texas, sometimes using machine guns.

"There's only so many places in the world you can shoot machine guns out of a helicopter and no one shoots back," said HeliBacon company co-owner Chris Britt.

Texas passed the "pork-chopper" bill in 2011 allowing aerial hunting of feral hogs, and in May, legislators approved hunting from hot-air balloons, which are quieter and give hunters a steadier shot. [Reuters, 6/12/2017]

Pre-Existing Condition

Enterprising mother Jeannine Isom in Cedar Hills, Utah, took her 7-year-old son's dental care into her own hands in June when she purchased hand sanitizer and needle-nose pliers at Walmart, then ushered her son into the store's restroom and pulled out two of his teeth. Police were alerted after the boy's older brother heard him screaming. The mother was charged with felony child abuse. [Deseret News, 6-5-2017]

Sweet Revenge

A frustrated victim of bedbugs in Augusta, Maine, reacted to city inaction by bringing a cup of bedbugs to a municipal office building and slamming it down on the counter, scattering about 100 insects and forcing the closure of several offices as officials scrambled to contain them. The apartment dweller had requested help finding other housing, but city officials told him he didn't qualify. [Kennebec (Maine) Journal, 6/5/2017]

Things We Didn't Know We Needed

Are cute vegetables easier to swallow? A Chinese company has developed fruit and vegetable molds that form growing foods into little Buddhas, hearts, stars and skulls. Farmers afix the plastic molds over the stems of growing plants, and the fruit fills the mold as it grows. Some designs include words, and the company also offers custom molds. [Daily Mail, 6/15/2017]

Fashion Emergency

French fashion label Y/Project, in an apparent response to the eternal question, "Do these jeans make my butt look big?" is selling buttless jeans. The waistband attaches to the legs of the jeans with a series of clasps and straps, so the pant legs hang loose on the wearer. The Detachable Button Down pants are priced at $570. [KSHB-TV, 6/15/2017]

Compelling Explanations

College student Lydia Marie Cormaney almost made it out of a Gillette, Wyoming, Walmart with more than $2,000 worth of merchandise without paying for it. When police arrived, she was ready with a reason: She was doing research about kleptomania, which also explained the stockpile of stolen items in her dorm room. However, as she was enrolled in only a biology class at Gillette College, it was unclear what she planned to do with the results of her study. [New York Daily News, 6/13/2017]

Ewwwww!

-- The Happiest Place on Earth was a little less joyful for 17 visitors in June, when a hazardous materials team was dispatched to Main Street at Disneyland after park-goers reported being struck by feces. Experts quickly realized that rather than being victims of a bathroom bomber, the park guests had been regrettably positioned beneath a flock of geese flying overhead. The victims were ushered to a private restroom to clean up and were provided with fresh clothing. [The Associated Press, 6/10/2017]

-- Maintenance workers at the courthouse in Jonesboro, Arkansas, are fed up with people urinating in the elevators, especially considering that restrooms are within spitting distance of the elevators. Craighead County officials hope to stem the tide with newly installed security cameras, which have caught three men in the act since their installation last fall. [The Associated Press, 6/16/2017]

Undignified Deaths

Robert Dreyer, celebrating his 89th birthday, suffered no apparent injury when he crashed his car into a fire hydrant in Viera, Florida, in May. But as he got out of the car to check the damage, he drowned after being sucked into the hole by the strong water pressure where the hydrant had been. A bystander tried to rescue Dreyer, but couldn't overcome the water pressure to reach him. [NBC News, 5/11/2017]

Frontiers of Marketing

Male baseball fans attending the June 15 Jacksonville (Florida) Jumbo Shrimp minor league game were treated to a novel promotional giveaway: pregnancy tests. The "You Might Be a Father" promotion was conceived to help fans decide whether they should return for the Father's Day game on Sunday, June 18. [The Associated Press, 6/13/2017]

People and Their Money

-- Because leaving your falcon at home while you do errands is too painful, high-end automaker Bentley now offers a customized SUV featuring a "removable transportation perch and tether" for hunting birds and a wood inlay in the shape of a falcon on the dash. At a starting price of $230,000, the Bentayga Falconry also features a refreshment case and special compartments for bird hoods and gauntlets. "Falconry is regarded as the sport of kings in the Middle East, so it was vital that the kit we create ... appeal to our valued customers there and around the world,” noted Geoff Dowding with Bentley's Mulliner division. [TIME, 5/18/2017]

-- A stretch limo wasn't posh enough for Saudia Shuler, a Philadelphia mom who wanted to make her son's high school prom memorable. Instead, she spent $25,000 creating a Dubai-themed prom night, including 3 tons of sand and a camel (for pre-prom photos). The lucky senior took not one but three dates to the dance, who along with him wore designer clothes and accessories. Shuler also sprang for a rented Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Range Rover. [Daily Mail, 6-5-2017]

Bright Ideas

-- Japan's Samurai Age store, which (naturally) offers novelty samurai apparel, is featuring a new line of samurai armor outfits for cats and dogs. The body armor is sized for small pets, but custom orders for larger sizes are possible, and can include a helmet and mask. (Samurai enthusiasts can also order armor for liquor bottles and dolls.) [United Press International, 6-7-2017]

-- Suspicions were aroused in New Hope, Alabama, when veteran mail carrier Susanna Burhans, 47, was seen throwing food at a dog along her route. On June 1, she was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after the dog's owner found a nail-filled meatball near his house, and a subsequent X-ray revealed nails in its stomach. The USPS has put the mail carrier on non-duty status. [Reuters, 6-2-2017]

-- Thailand's Scorpion Queen, who holds the Guinness World Record for holding a scorpion in her mouth (3 minutes and 28 seconds), shocked onlookers in June as she let scorpions crawl all over her body and in and out of her mouth as part of a show in Pattaya, a city on the Gulf of Thailand. Kanchana Kaetkaew also holds the record for co-habiting with 5,000 scorpions in a 12-meter-square glass enclosure for 33 days. [Daily Mail, 6-3-2017]

Wait, What?

The Zoological Wildlife Conservation Center in Rainier, Oregon, is offering sleepovers in its sloth sanctuary. The visit includes a tent with a cot and satellite TV (in case the animals are being too sloth-like). Visitors, who pay $600 (double occupancy) for the 12-hour experience, are asked to whisper so as not to stress out the sloths. [CNN Money, 3/11/2017]

Great Art!

French performance artist Abraham Poincheval managed to hatch nine chicken eggs in April by incubating them himself for three weeks inside a glass vivarium at Paris' Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum. Poincheval's past projects have included sitting inside a block of stone for a week and living in a hollowed-out bear sculpture for two weeks. [Reuters, 4-21-2017]

Least Competent Criminal

Baggy blue jeans were the ill-fated getaway vehicle for 15 quart-size bottles of Pennzoil motor oil and 30 DVDs of "Treasure Hunt" in a badly planned theft in Lakeland, Florida, in June. William Jason Hall, 38, stuffed the loot into his pants inside a 7-Eleven store without realizing that a detective in an unmarked police car outside was watching him. Because it was his third arrest on petty theft, he was charged with a felony. [WFLA, 6-6-2017]

Weird News is forever, but this is my last "News of the Weird" column, as I am now exhausted after almost 30 years in the racket. In this final edition, I remember a few of my favorites. My deep thanks to Andrews McMeel Syndication and to readers, who started me up and kept me going. Y'all take care of yourselves. -- Chuck Shepherd

-- (1995) Chesapeake, Virginia, inmate Robert Lee Brock filed a $5 million lawsuit against Robert Lee Brock -- accusing himself of violating his religious beliefs and his civil rights by getting himself drunk enough that he could not avoid various criminal behaviors. He wrote: "I want to pay myself five million dollars (for this breach of rights), but ask the state to pay it in my behalf since I can't work and am a ward of the state." In April, the lawsuit was dismissed. [Austin American-Statesman-AP, 4-8-95]

-- (2002) The Lane brothers of New York, Mr. Winner Lane, 44, and Mr. Loser Lane, 41 (their actual birth names), were profiled in a July Newsday report -- made more interesting by the fact that Loser is successful (a police detective in the South Bronx) and Winner is not (a history of petty crimes). A sister said she believes her parents selected "Winner" because their late father was a big baseball fan and "Loser" just to complete the pairing. [Newsday, 7-22-02]

-- (1996) A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for Lamar, Missouri, on Joyce Lehr's lawsuit against the county for injuries suffered in a 1993 fall in the icy, unplowed parking lot of the local high school. The Carthage Press reported that Lehr claimed damage to nearly everything in her body. According to her petition: "All the bones, organs, muscles, tendons, tissues, nerves, veins, arteries, ligaments ... discs, cartilages, and the joints of her body were fractured, broken, ruptured, punctured, compressed, dislocated, separated, bruised, contused, narrowed, abrased, lacerated, burned, cut, torn, wrenched, swollen, strained, sprained, inflamed, and infected." [Carthage Press, 1-9-96]

-- (2002) From time to time "News of the Weird" reported on the fluctuating value of the late Italian artist Piero Manzoni's personal feces, which he canned in 1961, 30 grams at a time in 90 tins, as art objects (though, over the years, 45 have reportedly exploded). Their price to collectors has varied (low of about $28,000 for a tin in 1998 to a high of $75,000 in 1993). In June 2002, the Tate Gallery in London excitedly announced it had purchased tin number 004 for about $38,000. (The price of 30 grams of gold in 2002 was a little over $300.) [Sydney Morning Herald, 7-1-02]

-- (1994) The New York Daily News reported in April on a cellblock fight between murderers Colin Ferguson and Joel Rifkin at the Nassau County jail. Reportedly, Ferguson (convicted of six race-related murders on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993) was using a telephone and told Rifkin (a serial killer serving 203 years for nine murders) to be quiet. According to the Daily News source, Ferguson told Rifkin, "I wiped out six devils (white people), and you only killed women." Rifkin allegedly responded, "Yeah, but I had more victims." Ferguson then allegedly ended the brief incident by punching Rifkin in the mouth. [Syracuse Herald-Journal-New York Daily News-AP, 4-11-94]

-- (1999) At Last! A Job That Actually Requires Geometry! Commissioners in Florida's Seminole County and Manatee County passed ordinances regulating public nudity by requiring women to cover at least 25 percent of the area of their breasts and at least 33 percent of the buttocks, with detailed instructions as to the points from which each coverage must be measured. (Refresher for law enforcement: The lateral area of a cone is pi (times) r (times) s where r=radius and s=slant height; for the surface area of a sphere, it's pi (times) r (squared), and, alas, for a flat surface, it's length times width.) [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4-4-1999]

-- (1998) On the day before Good Friday, reported the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Ernesto A. Moshe Montgomery consecrated the Shrine of the Weeping Shirley MacLaine in a room in the Beta Israel Temple in Los Angeles. Inspired by an image he said he had while riding in the actress's private jet, Montgomery said a subsequent large photograph of him with MacLaine was "observed shedding tears," which had inspired prayers and testimony of miraculous healings. [Los Angeles Times, 4-10-98]

-- (2001) A child pornography investigation in Minneapolis turned up 1,000 suspect images on the office computer of a 58-year-old University of Minnesota classics professor -- named Richard Pervo. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2-13-01]

-- (1993) In May, Elk River, Minnesota, landlord Todd Plaisted reported that his tenant Kenneth Lane had fled the area, abandoning his rented farmhouse and leaving behind at least 400 tons of used carpeting, at least 10,000 plastic windows from Northwest Airlines planes, and rooms full of sofas, mattresses and washing machines, among other things. Lane told townspeople he ran a "recycling" company, but there was no evidence of sales. A deputy sheriff driving by the farmhouse the year before saw Lane burying carpeting with a tractor and said Lane merely muttered, "I don't know what to say. You got me. I can't even make up an excuse." [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5-17-93]

-- (1990) An FBI investigation into interstate trafficking by diaper fetishists resulted in the arrests of five men belonging to an organization called the Diaper Pail Foundation, which has a letterhead and publishes a newsletter and information exchange for members. A Madison, Wisconsin, man, arrested in April for possession of child pornography, was found inside a van taking pictures of a child relieving himself. The man had offered service to the child's parents as a toilet trainer. [source unavailable, but "Diaper Pail Foundation" is searchable]

-- (1992) The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June on the local "Silent Meeting Club," consisting of several people who gather at various spots around town and make it a point not to speak to each other. Founder John Hudak said his inspiration was his observation that people often feel obligated to talk when they really have nothing to say, such as at parties, and wondered how nice it would be "to have a group of people where you wouldn't have to talk." [Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-2-92]

-- (1991) In May, Maxcy Dean Filer, 60, of Compton, California, finally passed the California Bar exam. He graduated from law school in 1966, but had failed the exam in each of his previous 47 tries. [International Herald Tribune, 6-1-91]

-- (2004) The New York Times reported in February on a Washington, D.C., man whose love of music led him, in the 1960s, to meticulously hand-make and hand-paint facsimile record album covers of his fantasized music, complete with imagined lyric sheets and liner notes (with some of the "albums" even shrink-wrapped), and, even more incredibly, to hand-make cardboard facsimiles of actual grooved discs to put inside them. "Mingering Mike," whom a reporter and two hobbyists tracked down (but who declined to be identified in print), also made real music, on tapes, using his and friends' voices to simulate instruments. His 38 imagined "albums" were discovered at a flea market after Mike defaulted on storage-locker fees, and the hobbyists who found them said they were so exactingly done that a major museum would soon feature them. [New York Times, 2-2-04]

-- (1999) From a May police report in The Messenger (Madisonville, Kentucky), concerning two trucks being driven strangely on a rural road: A man would drive one truck 100 yards, stop, walk back to a second truck, drive it 100 yards beyond the first truck, stop, walk back to the first truck, drive it 100 yards beyond the second truck, and so on. According to police, the man's brother was passed out drunk in one of the trucks, so the man was driving both trucks home (though the success of such a scheme is better imagined if the driving brother has a high blood-alcohol reading, too -- which was the case). [The Messenger, 5-7-99]