Former English soccer star Gary Mabbutt, 57, traveled to South Africa in July to visit his daughter, who works at Kruger National Park, but it wasn't the exotic big game that left the most lasting impression on him. While he was sleeping, he later told the BBC, "... a rat has come into the bedroom, climbed into the bed and has decided to chew on my foot," which Mabbutt couldn't feel because he suffers from Type 1 diabetes and has little feeling in his foot. The rat "made quite a big hole in my toe, going down to the bone, and ate underneath my foot." Mabbutt was finally alerted to the rodent's presence when it bit his thumb and he saw his bloody foot. He flew back to the United Kingdom, where he underwent surgery and spent a week in the hospital. "All the opponents that I've played against," he said, "and I finally get taken out by a rat." [BBC, 8/27/2018]

Bright Ideas

-- The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Maine is seeking state permission to construct a permanent memorial to the 4,500 or so lobsters that perished on Aug. 22 when a truck carrying them crashed in Brunswick. The monument, a 5-foot-tall granite tombstone, would "remind everyone that the best way to prevent such tragedies is to go vegan," said Danielle Katz, director of PETA. The proposed wording for the stone is: "In memory of the lobsters who suffered and died at this spot August 2018, Try Vegan, PETA" and would include a graphic of a lobster. Of course, Maine residents are possibly the least sympathetic about their crustacean counterparts: The Portland Press Herald reports that in 2017, 110 million pounds of lobster were harvested in the state. [Portland Press Herald, 8/29/2018]

-- Along with a nail salon, a massage parlor and a dry cleaner, a mall in Toronto, Canada, is now the site of North America's first sex doll brothel. Aura Dolls offers "an exciting new way" for patrons to achieve their desires "without the many restrictions and limitations that a real partner may come with," says the company's website. Marketing director Claire Lee told City News on Aug. 27 that customers "come in, they have their own room ... a TV monitor that plays adult entertainment and a doll ... will be ready and waiting for you." Lee also assures potential customers that the dolls will be cleaned after each customer using a three-step process. The company says it has had requests from women for male dolls and is considering adding them. [City News, 8/27/2018]

Harsh

Lifelong New York Knicks fan Evan Perlmutter, 33, finally hit the wall with his team. Fed up that the Knicks had been promising a better future for a decade, he told Bleacher Report, Perlmutter posted a listing on eBay to sell his fandom. In the description, he promised to root for the team of the auction winner's choosing and "burn no less than three articles of Knicks memorabilia." Sure enough, he got a bite: James Riedel, 23, of Orange County, California, paid $3,500 for Perlmutter's fandom on Aug. 24, converting Perlmutter into a Los Angeles Lakers fan. Perlmutter plans to attend a few Lakers games with Riedel and record his destruction of his Knicks gear for Riedel's YouTube channel. [Bleacher Report, 8/27/2018]

Awwwwwww!

A first date spent surfing in Santa Cruz, California, last October ended in an unconventional first kiss when 56-year-old Max Montgomery collapsed from a heart attack on the beach. His date, Andi Traynor, a 45-year-old anesthesiologist, leaped into action, performing CPR until paramedics arrived. Montgomery underwent bypass surgery the next day, and he assured Traynor that she was under no obligation to keep seeing him. "Who wants to date someone who just had a heart attack? But she told me she was not going anywhere," he told The Daily Mail on Aug. 29, and in fact, the two are still together, having sealed their relationship with a "real" kiss. [The Daily Mail, 8/29/2018]

Compelling Explanation

Colorado Springs resident Klete Keller engaged the services of a female dog-sitter through an app called Wag! for his pet, Jimbo. But Keller's tail was not wagging when he returned home early the morning of Aug. 27 to find two shirtless men sitting on his couch and "an open bottle of personal lubricant and a camcorder on the end table," Keller told Fox 21 News, "so it's pretty self-explanatory what was going on." When reached for comment, the unnamed dog-sitter said her keys were stuck in her car and she "didn't have WD-40 ... so I ended up grabbing what I had in my car, for things, that you know, I do on my personal time." But Keller also noticed what he suspected was "bodily fluids" on the couch and said Jimbo was locked in a bedroom, sitting in his own urine and acting terrified. "It was just, just a total mess and I can only imagine what poor Jimbo saw in there," Keller said. The sitter did admit that she shouldn't have invited guests over, but it's a good bet her former 4.96 out of 5 rating on Wag! is going to take a hit. [Fox 21 News, 8/29/2018]

Government in Action

This summer, a few of Ryk Edelstein's friends in Montreal, Canada, had their requests for vanity license plates turned down for being "offensive." "I found it mind-boggling that innocent-sounding family names or place names were being rejected," Edelstein told the Montreal Gazette. So he decided to order his own vanity plate, requesting the word SMEGMA, which he was certain the Societe de l'assurance automobile du Quebec (SAAQ), which issues the plates, would check, "and in a million years it would never be approved." But it took SAAQ less than 24 hours to approve the request and issue its congratulations to Edelstein, who now sports the plate on his car. He reports that his wife thought it was funny at first, but now she is "none too pleased about this plate." [Montreal Gazette, 8/30/2018]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

William Parrish Jr., 32, and McKenzee Dobbs, 20, of Ocala, Florida, were just trying to better accommodate their customers when they turned the kitchen window of their mobile home into a drive-thru for heroin addicts. They also installed helpful directional signs and even had a "Closed, Please Call Again" sign alerting buyers when they'd next be open. Ocala police officers who raided the trailer on Aug. 23 were tipped off by a number of overdoses happening nearby: "We were able to determine that the product was laced with fentanyl," police Capt. Steven Cuppy told WFTV. Parrish and Dobbs told Ocala police they thought a drive-thru would be less noticeable than people regularly going in and out of the home. [WFTV, 8/31/2018]

Questionable Judgment

Toms River, New Jersey, police are hoping the public can lend them a hand in finding a lost item. Ronald Vanarsdale, 36, of Toms River was drag racing on his motorcycle just after midnight on Aug. 30 when he crashed, sending the bike more than 760 feet from the crash site and hurling Vanarsdale 300 feet through the air, severing his right arm just below the bicep. NJ.com reported police Sgt. Ed Mooney applied a tourniquet to Vanarsdale's arm at the scene, and he later underwent surgery at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune. Toms River police, though, could not locate the severed limb and asked the public's help in locating it. [NJ.com, 8/30/2018]

Social media have given us the dubious opportunity to document all manner of celebratory, mournful, hilarious and contemplative events. And so they have opened the door to fame for "Paul Flart" (real name: Doug), a 31-year-old hospital security guard who took to Instagram in March to share with the world his "sphincter sirens." Flart spent a lot of time sitting around at the front desk with nothing to do, but, he noticed, "The lobby has really great acoustics, and naturally, we all fart. One day I ripped a rather nice one and got really good sound from it, so the next time it happened I recorded it and sent it to my group chat." Those lucky friends encouraged him to go viral and helped him choose his Insta handle, Paul Flart. Today, he's racked up more than 20,000 followers, according to Vice. Unfortunately, hospital management isn't among them, and on Aug. 23, Flart was fired from his job. But he's not deflated; he plans to expand his reach: "We can do Paul Flart on vacation, you know, throw in like a Hawaiian shirt and a hat ... and then just fart around Florida." [Vice, 8/23/2018]

Government in Action

The public works department in San Francisco gets, on average, 65 calls EVERY DAY with complaints about feces on the sidewalk. Public works director Mohammed Nuru and the city's mayor, London Breed, put their heads together and came up with a solution: the Poop Patrol. In mid-September, five public works employees with a steam cleaner will begin scouring poop "hot spots," such as the Civic Center, Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, during the afternoons to clean up what nature has left behind. (Another team also cleans overnight.) Officials told the San Francisco Chronicle that the waste comes from dogs and people, and the mayor recently allotted about $1 million for new public restrooms. "I just want the city to be clean," Mayor Breed said, "and I want to make sure we're providing the resources so that it can be." [San Francisco Chronicle, 8/14/2018]

Bright Idea

-- As his trial got underway on Aug. 22, Chinese University of Hong Kong associate professor Khaw Kim-sun pleaded not guilty to a breathtaking murder plot. Prosecutors say that in 2015, Khaw filled a yoga ball with carbon monoxide, then left it in the trunk of his wife's car, where it slowly leaked the noxious gas and killed his wife and their 16-year-old daughter. The BBC reported that Khaw was angry because his wife wouldn't divorce him so that he could be with a student with whom he was having an affair. When colleagues caught Khaw filling the ball, he said he was going to use it to kill rabbits, but in his statement to police, he said the gas was to kill rats in his home. He is charged with two counts of murder. [BBC, 8/23/2018]

-- Jeffrey Tomerlin, 45, was charged with assault on Aug. 19 after he hurled a soft, fluffy, edible weapon at his ex-girlfriend. When Tomerlin saw his ex in a car with her new boyfriend, he walked up to her window and threw a biscuit at her face. He also charged the car, banging on it and saying he would kill them, reported WKRN, earning additional charges of public intoxication and vandalism. It was not clear whether the biscuit damaged the ex-girlfriend's face. [WKRN, 8/21/2018]

Florida. Says It All

On Aug. 20, the Miami Herald endorsed Republican Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who was running to replace Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to represent a district that includes parts of Miami and Miami Beach. (She lost her primary bid on Aug. 28.) Rodriguez Aguilera has been a city official and a business executive, the Herald noted, but conceded, "We realize that Rodriguez Aguilera is an unusual candidate." Before she was a candidate, Rodriguez Aguilera appeared on Spanish-language television programs to talk about her experience of being abducted by aliens when she was 7 years old. Three beings, two women and a man who reminded her of Jesus Christ, spoke to her "telepathically" and took her aboard their spaceship. Inside, she saw "round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship," and she said she has communicated with them several times since then. However, editorial page editor Nancy Ancrum didn't think Rodriguez Aguilera's beliefs or past experiences compromised her as an effective public servant. "Here's why we chose her: She's not crazy," Ancrum told The Washington Post. "I don't think we went off the rails here." [Washington Post, 8/20/2018]

Owwww!

Mohamad Zayid Abdihdy, 24, declared that he's "going back to hookah" after a fiery incident on Aug. 25 involving his e-cigarette. The cellphone store worker was in an HDTV Outlet store in Anaheim, California, buying a new television when the smoking device exploded in his pants pocket. "The gentleman, he is running ... and he is screaming and yelling," store manager Antelmolare Guzman told NBC4. "Apparently, all of his right leg was completely burnt all the way down. Part of his private parts were also kind of affected." While Abdihdy ran to the restroom to see to his burns, Guzman put out the still-flaming e-cig on the store's floor. Abdihdy, who did not go to the hospital, said he still can't walk on his leg. [NBC4, 8/28/2018]

The Meth Made Me Do It

Mason Tackett of Floyd County, Kentucky, told WYMT that neighbors called him on Aug. 26 to say his cousin, Phillip Hagans, was carrying items out of Tackett's house. When Tackett returned home, he said, "It looked like he was packing up for a yard sale when he come out." Hagans was "lying, throwing his hands, saying stuff like, 'I didn't do it. I didn't do it.' ... He did pull a gun on me," Tackett said. But what he really couldn't understand was Hagans' choice of items to steal: a cheese grater, an empty Lysol bottle and soap. "Who steals a cheese grater?" Tackett asked. "He stole my soap. Who steals soap? ... Must have been a bad batch (of methamphetamine) around here 'cause Floyd County has gone crazy in the last four days." Hagans was charged with receiving stolen property and being a convicted felon with a firearm. [WYMT, 8/26/2018]

Sorry You Missed It

At least one competitor dressed up as Donald Trump at the World Gravy Wrestling Championships in Lancashire, England, on Aug. 27. As grapplers slipped and slid in the slimy mess, even the referee got toppled a few times. United Press International reported that both men and women participated to support the East Lancashire Hospice. [UPI, 8/27/2018]

Extreme Measures

A man named Tang from Sichuan Province, China, promised his girlfriend, Yang, that he would buy an expensive luxury car for her. The only problem was that he didn't have the money. So he cooked up a scheme, inviting Yang and her brothers to the Chengdu car dealership on Aug. 16, where he had allegedly put down a 10,000 yuan payment. Tang asked the group to wait there while he went to get the cash, but instead, according to Shanghaiist, he went to a supermarket and bought a fruit knife. Outside, he found a secluded spot and cut up his own arms, then called Yang and said he had been robbed at knifepoint of the 750,000 yuan he had supposedly withdrawn for the car. While her brothers took Tang to the hospital, Yang waited for police, who eventually excised the story from Tang. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and a 500 yuan fine. [Shanghaiist, 8/23/2018]

In Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Aug. 17, a friendly game at Southers Marsh Golf Club turned ugly when Derek Harkins, 46, and an unnamed 57-year-old man got into a brawl on the 18th hole. But you gotta hand it to Harkins: The Patriot Ledger reported that he pointedly ended the fight by biting off the other man's finger up to the knuckle, according to Plymouth Police Chief Michael Botieri. The victim, from Marshfield, was taken to the hospital, but his finger could not be reattached. Harkins was arrested at the scene and charged with assault and battery, mayhem and disturbing the peace. [Patriot-Ledger, 8/19/2018]

Undignified Death

The happiest place on Earth couldn't work its magic on Aug. 15 when a worker at nearby Harvest Power fell into a vat of oil and grease from Walt Disney World. The plant in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, recycles the resort's food waste, then converts it into renewable energy and fertilizer. John Korody, 61, and another worker were emptying the contents of a semitruck into a vat when Korody slipped on a grate and fell into the vat. His co-worker tried to pull him out, but the fumes overtook them both, and Korody slid farther in, according to The Washington Post. The Reedy Creek Fire Department responded, but Korody was pronounced dead at the scene. [The Washington Post, 8/16/2018]

Smooth Reaction

Debbie L. McCulley, 57, of Salem, Virginia, has been banned from all future Floyd County High School sporting events but, on the bright side, her indecent exposure case may eventually be dropped, following an incident area lawyers are calling "moon over Floyd." McCulley's husband, Mark, is the JV softball coach for Glenvar High School, and the charges resulted from Debbie's unusual reaction to her husband's team's loss to Floyd County in May. She "stood on or close to the pitcher's mound and pulled down her pants with her right hand to expose her right butt cheek," according to Floyd County Sheriff's Deputy G.H. Scott. But Debbie told the officer that her husband had confronted the opposing coach after the game, and she was afraid he would be "attacked," so she was trying to divert attention from the two men. The Roanoke Times reported that Debbie wrote a letter of apology and will be performing community service. Chris Robinson of the Virginia High School League noted that crowd behavior at games is "probably leaning a little bit in the wrong direction." [Roanoke Times, 8/17/2018]

Weird Science

United Press International reported that a 42-year-old British woman saw her eye doctor after experiencing swelling and drooping of her eyelid earlier this year. After performing an MRI, doctors discovered a cyst and performed surgery, during which they found a hard contact lens embedded in the eyelid. It turns out that the patient had suffered a blow to the eye 28 years ago and had assumed the lens fell out. She experienced no symptoms until the recent discomfort. [UPI, 8/16/2018]

Annoying

-- After 16 years, neighbors of "Eva N." in Sturovo, Slovakia, have gotten relief from her particular brand of torment, reported the BBC. From morning until night, the woman had played a four-minute aria from Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata" over and over, with her speakers on full blast. "The whole street is suffering," complained one resident. At first, the music-lover played the music to drown out a neighbor's barking dog, but continued the practice until Aug. 6, when she was arrested for harassment and malicious persecution. If found guilty, she could face between six months and three years in prison. [BBC, 8/9/2018]

-- A pothole in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, got a new life as a vegetable garden this summer after area residents grew weary of waiting for the city to repair it. The hole, which is several feet deep, had been expanding for months, neighbors said. So they filled it with tomato plants, which are now ripening and getting so tall they require wire cages for support. Now, "It's sort of, like, become the community garden," resident Bryan Link told CBC Radio. Finally, Mayor John Tory has agreed to not only fill the pothole, but to move the tomato plants to a community garden. [CBC Radio, 8/16/2018]

Unexpected Hazard

An unnamed Irish teenager's hiking outing became fodder for any number of bad punsters after the boy was hit by a falling sheep while walking in Northern Ireland's Mourne Mountains. The sheep fell from a crag on Aug. 17 and landed on the boy, who was treated for potential injuries to his head, neck, back, abdomen and leg. "It is believed the sheep was uninjured and left the scene unaided," reported Metro News. Punny comments on a social media post made by the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team included: "Mutton been looking where he was going, I bet he's feeling a little sheepish now" and "Ewe want to be careful on the mountains!!" [Metro News, 8/19/2018]

Inexplicable

On an Aug. 17 flight between Chicago and Narita International Airport in Tokyo, a 24-year-old American man, who was reportedly unprovoked, urinated on a 50-year-old Japanese man sitting two rows behind him. The younger man had consumed at least four glasses of champagne and one cup of sake before the incident, police told Japan Today, and claimed not to remember what he had done. He was restrained aboard the remainder of the flight and turned over to police in Tokyo. [Japan Today, 8/19/2018]

Oops

Pennsylvania State Police told Lehigh Valley Live that Evan T. Kasick, 52, of Upper Milford Township, was injured on Aug. 16 when he wrecked his motorcycle -- in his own driveway. Kasick sped into his driveway around 7:30 p.m. and struck a concrete barrier, causing him to be thrown from the Honda bike. He was taken to an area hospital with undisclosed injuries, and police issued a ticket for driving at an unsafe speed. In his driveway. [Lehigh Valley Live, 8/19/2018]

Compelling Explanation

Near Mason City, Iowa, on Aug. 20, the Iowa State Patrol pulled over a Ferrari 488 Spider that was clocked going 137 mph during a rainstorm. "Not a great idea to drive this fast in the rain," the trooper posted on Facebook with a photo of the radar readout. The unnamed driver, however, wasn't fazed; she thought she was going "around 100." Fox News reported that if ticketed in a 70-mph zone (the highest speed limit in Iowa), her fine would be $335. [Fox News, 8/21/2018]

Superpowers

-- Phoenix teenager Josiah Wiedman, 13, was walking home through a park in early August with a friend when he was struck by lightning, "sending me 9 feet into the air, making me bounce on my head and then flip over to my back," he told ABC News. Afterward, doctors put Josiah into a medically induced coma for three days, and when he came to, he made a speedy recovery. His mother, who didn't expect her son to survive, dubbed him "Superman" -- and indeed, Josiah said he's waiting for his special powers to kick in. "I haven't felt my powers yet, but I will soon," he said. [ABC News, 8/17/2018]

-- Moses Lanham, 57, fell 18 feet from a rope in gym class when he was 14 years old. As a result, the Michigan man is now known as "Mr. Elastic." Lanham has double cartilage and extra tissue in his knee joints, hips and ankles, which makes it possible for him to turn his feet 180 degrees backward and walk. In fact, he tells Metro News, walking with his feet pointed behind him is more comfortable than walking normally. "I've heard one other (person) can turn his feet, but not walk," Lanham said of his fame. "When I perform this in front of people, I love the reactions," he said. "One time, I actually had a person throw up after I turned my feet around." [Metro News, 8/21/2018]