Camille Coelho, 54, of Brookline, Massachusetts, an ICU nurse at South Shore Hospital, set out at low tide for a stroll with her son's dog, Lucy, along Constitution Beach on April 8 to relax and look for sea glass, but found herself stuck in mud that reached past her knees instead. "It's a great metaphor for the year," she told the Boston Herald. "I can't believe it. ... This past year has been awful." Passersby rushed to help, but soon called firefighters, who arrived to pull her out. [Boston Herald, 4/9/2021]

Wait, What?

An anonymous New York resident seeking to marry their adult child filed suit in federal court in Manhattan on April 1 asking that laws barring incestuous marriage be overturned, Fox News reported. In court papers, the petitioner claims such a marriage is a matter of "individual autonomy" and asks to remain unnamed because "a large segment of society views (the request) as morally, socially and biologically repugnant." The petitioner is a parent of an adult child, but court documents do not reveal the couple's genders, ages, hometown or relationship. The filing does detail that the "proposed spouses are unable to procreate together." Manhattan family and matrimonial law attorney Eric Wrubel predicted, "It's never gonna fly." [Fox News, 4/12/2021]

Repeat Offender

Heather Poplasky, 32, of Plainfield, Connecticut, was arrested four times in 24 hours over the course of April 10 and 11, according to police. The first arrest came when police were called to her home, where they say she threatened to cut herself with a large kitchen knife and blame it on her boyfriend, WFSB-TV reported. Police charged her with reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct and took her to a hospital for evaluation, where Putnam police issued her a summons following an incident with a member of the staff. On April 11, Poplasky violated the terms of her release from the hospital by returning to her home, where Plainfield police say they again arrested her, adding more charges. While she was in custody awaiting arraignment the next day, police say she flooded her cell by putting a roll of toilet paper and trash in the toilet, and a charge of criminal mischief was added. Her bond topped out at $30,000 for the various offenses. [WFSB, 4/12/2021]

Feast or Famine

-- Fox Business reported on April 13 that toilet paper sales have declined to levels below pre-pandemic levels, indicating that last year's hoarding is affecting this year's sales. Marjorie Greenburgh, 62, of New Rochelle, New York, said because she has 54 rolls still stored throughout her home, "I'm not planning on buying for a while." NielsenIQ clocked the decline in sales at 33% in March. [Fox Business, 4/13/2021]

-- The BBC reported on April 15 that England is experiencing a shortage of garden gnomes. Factors contributing to this critical supply deficit include a shortage of raw materials, the recent blockage of the Suez Canal by a container ship, and the increased popularity of gardening during the COVID-19 shutdowns. "We haven't seen a gnome in six months," said Ian Byrne, assistant manager of Highfield Garden World in Whitminster. "Raw materials are becoming a bit of an issue, and unfortunately, gnomes are a victim. ... Gnomes of any type -- plastic, stone or concrete -- are in short supply." [BBC, 4/15/2021]

Awesome!

Gary and Beth Machens moved into a historic home in Alton, Illinois, in December and uncovered more history to go with it when they found a 19th-century brick tunnel underneath the house. Gary Machens discovered the entrance to the tunnel as he was doing some sidewalk repair. The barrel-shaped tunnel, about 9 feet high and 60 feet long, is believed by local historians to have been built around 1840 -- 50 years before the house was constructed. "Whatever they built this for, it took a lot of men and a lot of hours. You know, one guy didn't do this," Machens told KTVI-TV. He believes the tunnel could have been used to store ice or carriages, or it could have been part of the Underground Railroad. "There was a ferry here in the Alton area to the Missouri side, and it's possible it could have been used for that," he said. [KTVI, 4/13/2021]

Vintage Weird

Brian Robson of Cardiff, Wales, was 19 years old in 1964, when he accepted a job on the Victorian Railways in Australia. He almost immediately regretted his decision and started scheming about how to get back home, but he didn't have enough money for the return trip. That's when he had an idea: With the help of two Irish friends, Robson squeezed himself into a 30-by-26-by-38-inch wooden crate and shipped himself home in the cargo area of a Qantas flight. "The first 10 minutes was fine," he told CNN. "But your knees start to cramp up when they're stuck up to your chest." When the crate arrived in Sydney, it landed on the tarmac upside down. "So now I'm sitting on my neck and my head," he explained, "and I was there for 22 hours upside down," until arriving next in Los Angeles, where two airport workers discovered him. He spent six days recovering in a hospital as word of his story got out, and Pan Am airlines sent Robson home to London in a first-class seat. Robson lost touch with the friends who helped him but now hopes to find them and reconnect. He's never been back to Australia. [CNN, 4/14/2021]

Compelling Explanations

A Blount County (Tennessee) Sheriff's deputy was dispatched to a Dollar General store in Maryville on April 5 after a clerk was presented with a $1 million bill, The Smoking Gun reported. Amanda McCormick, 39, told officers she received the bill "in the mail from a church" and that she planned to use the funds to purchase the cart full of items she had, "including several gift cards ... for care packages for homeless individuals," according to a police report. McCormick and her companion, Linda Johnson, 61, were not arrested but were banned from returning to the Dollar General store, and officers confiscated the bill. [The Smoking Gun, 4/14/2021]

Slave to Fashion

Among the items unveiled in Louis Vuitton's fall/winter 2021 men's collection in January was a leather "Keepall" bag, shaped like a miniature airplane and covered with the ubiquitous LV logo, which went viral April 2 when a Twitter user pointed out that an actual airplane could be purchased on eBay for less than the Keepall's $39,000 price tag. Oddity Central reported the bag, designed by Vuitton menswear artistic director Virgil Abloh, features wings, a tail and four engines; the used single-engine Cessna was listed at $32,300 on eBay. [Oddity Central, 4/12/2021]

Most citizens of Brussels, Belgium, have never seen the Palace of Justice, the largest courthouse in the world, without construction scaffolding surrounding it, as renovations on the facade of the iconic building have been mired in red tape and bureaucratic incompetence for most of 40 years, according to The Bulletin. In mid-March, construction crews finally started work, but not on the building; they arrived to shore up the scaffolding, which has grown outdated and dangerous over so much time. Officials assert this will allow outside renovations to finally commence and predict the scaffolding will come down by 2030. Belgians, however, are skeptical. [The Bulletin, 3/17/2021]

Authorities in Sri Lanka arrested Caroline Jurie, the reigning Mrs. World, after she snatched the crown from the head of Pushpika De Silva as she was crowned Mrs. Sri Lanka on national television on April 4, allegedly injuring her. Jurie, the 2019 Mrs. Sri Lanka, claimed De Silva was a divorced woman, which made her ineligible to win the pageant, but organizers confirmed De Silva is only separated, and she has been re-crowned. The new queen reported on Facebook that she went to the hospital to be treated for head injuries after the incident, and police spokesman Ajith Rohana told the BBC Jurie was charged with "simple hurt and criminal cause." Pageant director Chandimal Jayasinghe said, "It was a disgrace how Caroline Jurie behaved on the stage." [BBC, 4/8/2021]

The Passing Parade

All in the Family

At a wedding in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province in China on March 31, the groom's mother noticed a birthmark on the bride's hand that was similar to one belonging to her long-lost daughter. When asked, the bride's parents admitted they had found her as a baby by the side of the road and taken her to live with them as their own -- a secret they had never told. The Daily Star reported that upon hearing of the connection, the bride burst into tears, saying the moment was "happier than the wedding day itself." Bonus: The groom was also adopted, so their marriage could proceed as planned. [Daily Star, 4/5/2021]

Job of a Researcher

Scientists studying ticks at A.T. Still University in Kirksville, Missouri, have enlisted the help of the Missouri Department of Conservation in asking the public to refrain from killing any ticks they pick off themselves and mail them to the university instead. Conservation department spokesman Francis Skalicky told KY3-TV that, while 14 species of ticks live in Missouri, "we're trying to find out ... the prevalence of species and more information on the diseases they are carrying." He asks people to put ticks in a zip-close bag with a damp paper towel before sending them in for study. [KY3-TV, 4/2/2021]

Causing a Stink

Police in Phoenix are searching for whoever dumped hundreds of carp and gizzard shad along a road on the north side of the city on April 4, KPHO-TV reported. Arizona Game and Fish said the estimated 1,000 pounds of fish were dumped along with trash left over from a spearfishing tournament at nearby Lake Pleasant. "It's pretty gross," said motorist Karen Rowe. "I mean fish in the middle of the desert, so it's quite shocking." Authorities said those responsible could be charged with criminal littering. [AZFamily.com, 4/6/2021]

Sweet Revenge

Concord, North Carolina, police say they have not determined a motive for an April 2 incident in which Lacy Cordell Gentry, 32, allegedly drove his car through the front doors of the Walmart he had recently been fired from, destroying displays but avoiding injuring any shoppers. "If you take a car through a Walmart, there's going to be a lot of damage," one officer told local media. The New York Daily News reported that Gentry was taken into custody and faces multiple charges. [NY Daily News, 4/5/2021]

Lost and Found

Cybill Moore of Weatherford, Texas, was puzzled by the large basket of men's dirty laundry left on her front porch, along with a bag of laundry soap and dryer sheets, on March 26. Assuming there'd been a mix-up, she left it on the porch for a day and posted on social media sites to find the owner, with no luck, she told the Weatherford Democrat, so she finally just washed, dried and folded the clothes. That's when a strange man showed up at the door saying he meant to drop the laundry four houses down, where he pays a woman to clean his clothes. Moore said he was shocked that she had laundered the items for him, and now, "A lot of people have joked about dropping off their clothes for me, since I'm doing 'community laundry,'" [Weatherford Democrat, 3/29/2021]

Disturbing the Peace

Neighbors around a new luxury condo tower in Brooklyn, New York, are up in arms, and up at night, because of the persistent, shrill whistle they say is coming from the building, reported NBC New York. The city has been inundated with complaints. "It almost sounds like the subway screeching, but it's constant, and it usually happens late at night," Chris Valentini said of the noise. A representative of the developer told neighbors the sound originates from wind whipping around the new metal balconies. "This is not uncommon in new buildings," he said, "and we will resolve it." [NBC New York, 4/3/2021]

Noted

Ayanna Williams of Houston achieved a Guinness World Record for the longest fingernails grown by a woman in 2017, when her nails measured 19 feet. In early April, Williams visited a dermatology clinic in Fort Worth to have the nails cut off -- her first trim since the 1990s -- but not before measuring them again: 24 feet, a length that required a manicure lasting several days, using three to four bottles of nail polish, CNN reported. "With or without my nails, I will still be the queen," Williams said. The nails were preserved and will be on display at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Orlando, Florida. [CNN, 4/8/2021]

Awesome!

On April 5, Don Muchow, 59, of Plano, Texas, completed the 2,761-mile journey he began on Feb. 1, 2020, running from Disneyland in California to Walt Disney World in Florida, to raise awareness of Type 1 diabetes, which he has. He originally planned to complete his Mouse-to-Mouse run in a little over three months, The Orange County Register reported, but COVID-19 changed that, and while Muchow still completed the run in about 90 days, those days were spread out over 14 months as he adjusted for the pandemic. "I never considered quitting even once," Muchow said. "I want every single person with Type 1 diabetes to see that we can still dream big." [Orange County Register, 4/3/2021]

-- An April Fools' Day prank went wrong in Wichita, Kansas, on ... April 1, KWCH-TV reported, when Arnthia Willis, 58, called her daughter that morning and said she'd been shot. The Wichita Police and Fire departments and Sedgwick County EMS responded to the address given, but discovered no one was there. They later found Arnthia in suburban Derby and arrested her for an unlawful request for emergency service assistance. [KWCH-TV, 4/1/2021]

-- Michael Boatman, 41, discovered by two sheriff's deputies wandering down the street at 1 a.m. in Spartanburg, South Carolina, wearing only a "clear bag over his genitals" on April 1, told the officers he was doing a "walk of shame" in penance for cheating on his wife, according to an incident report. The Smoking Gun reported Boatman, who was smoking marijuana, according to the report, also allegedly told officers he had taken methamphetamine earlier. Boatman briefly tried to run away from officers, police said, but was captured and arrested for indecent exposure, among other offenses. [The Smoking Gun, 4/1/2021]

Yikes!

An unnamed man emerged with his groceries from an Albertson's supermarket in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on March 28, to find that his car had been overtaken by a swarm of an estimated 15,000 honeybees, according to the Las Cruces Fire Department. The man, who had borrowed the car, had left the back window down during his 10-minute trip inside the store, and the bees took up residence in the back seat. The New York Times reported he called 911, and responding firefighters turned to Jesse Johnson, 37, an off-duty firefighter who keeps bees as a hobby. Johnson brought an empty hive box treated with lemongrass oil ("It really mimics the scent of the queen," he said) and lured the swarm out of the car. "I'll do anything to keep people from killing bees," Johnson said. [New York Times, 4/1/2021]

Cliche Come to Life

Around 4:15 a.m. on March 24, an unidentified resident of Laurium, Michigan, woke to find a gun pointed at his head, WLUC-TV reported. Laurium Police said Warren Meyers, 52, of Calumet, Michigan, allegedly demanded the homeowner give him his two cats. The "cat burglar" left with one cat and was later apprehended, along with the gun he used, said authorities. He was arraigned on March 29 in Houghton County Court; the fate of the stolen cat is unknown. [WLUC-TV, 3/29/2021]

Everyone's a Critic

Jason Harvey, 50, of Romford, England, has been fined about $3,800 after his east London town council received 150 complaints from neighbors about his Saturday-night karaoke parties. "It has been a nightmare," said one neighbor. "It was so loud, and his singing was terrible." Noise officers told the Evening Standard they received specific complaints about Harvey's covers of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream." Harvey, who said he would appeal the fine, defended his voice: "I admit I'm no singer, but I have a go. I would have a couple of people over and they loved all that." [Evening Standard, 2/26/2021]

Don't Eat That!

Among the treasures discovered at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, England, is a 121-year-old chocolate bar, still in its tin, commissioned by Queen Victoria for troops fighting in the Second Boer War in South Africa, Reuters reported on March 31. Oxburgh was the ancestral home of the Bedingfeld family for 500 years, and one of them, Sir Henry Edward Paston-Bedingfeld, fought in that war; the chocolate bar was discovered in his helmet case. "Although you wouldn't want it as your Easter treat," mused Anna Forrest, cultural heritage curator at Britain's National Trust, "it is still complete and a remarkable find." On the lid, a message is inscribed in Queen Victoria's handwriting: "I wish you a happy new year." [Reuters, 3/31/2021]

Unexpected Diagnosis

Kent Ryan Tomao, 25, of Kidapawan City, Philippines, has experienced pain in his chest during cold weather ever since he was stabbed by some teenagers on his way home from work in January 2020. Inquirer.net reported on March 24 that a recent X-ray taken as part of Tomao's application for a mining job revealed the source: a 4-inch knife blade buried in his chest, just inches from his lungs. Tomao told local media he had "no idea there is a knife in my chest" and now "I am just seeking help so it can be removed." [Inquirer.net, 3/24/2021]

Animal Antics

-- The Anchorage, Alaska, Daily News reported on March 26 that customers at a local Costco store are routinely robbed of large cuts of meat as they transfer their groceries to their cars ... by ravens. More than a year ago, Olani Saunoa was buckling her toddler into a car seat when a raven swooped in and grabbed a package of short ribs from her car. "He had picked up the entire package," she said. And this year it happened to her again -- a bird snatched a pack of pork ribs. Other customers are reporting similar incidents on social media. Rick Sinnott, a former wildlife biologist, isn't surprised: Ravens "much prefer ... a package of short ribs from Costco to half of a hamburger bun from McDonald's." [Anchorage Daily News, 3/26/2021]

-- Neighbors in Northampton, England, have been annoyed by a swan that has been knocking on their doors, sometimes for hours at a time, for five years, Fox News reported on March 24. "He starts by rattling the letterbox then bashes the metal with its beak quite loudly," said resident Stephen Legg. "The racket reverberates through the whole house." The bird targets houses only on one particular block, according to local media, but no one seems to know why. [Fox News, 3/24/2021]

Overreaction

Thomas McCann, 49, of Stockport, England, was sentenced to prison for life on March 30 for the brutal murder of his wife, Yvonne, 46, in May 2020, following an argument over a bag of french fries left out of the freezer, according to court documents. The Guardian reported McCann strangled his wife in the bathroom, then dismembered her body and disposed of some of the parts in Reddish Vale Country Park, where dog walkers discovered her remains; other parts were taken to a recycling center. During this time, McCann texted their children, saying Yvonne had walked out on him. He was later spotted on video footage carrying trash bags to his car and while walking toward the park, and confessed the killing to police. [The Guardian, 3/30/2021]

Compelling Explanation

Deputies in Brevard County, Florida, clocked Charles Thomas, 65, of Malabar, going over 100 mph on his motorcycle and weaving in and out of traffic on March 31, according to an arrest report. When they finally caught up with him, Thomas reassured them by saying "he is trained to drive like that," WKMG-TV reported. He was charged with reckless driving. [ClickOrlando.com, 4/1/2021]