Catherine Graham of Marshfield, Massachusetts, recently cashed in on her 15 minutes of fame on "The Price Is Right" with host Drew Carey. She flew to Los Angeles to visit her daughter and attended a taping of the show, which aired on Feb. 1. As luck would have it, Graham ended up on stage with Carey and played for a great trip -- to New Hampshire! When Carey gushed, "New Hampshire is beautiful!" Graham replied, "Drew, I live in Boston! I've been to New Hampshire a million times!" But wait, there's more! In order to collect the prize roundtrip airfare, she'll have to travel to Los Angeles again to fly to Manchester, New Hampshire. "I just wish it was Tahiti ... or Bora Bora. A cruise around the world maybe," Graham told WBZ-TV. But, she said, "It was so fun." [WBZ, 2/11/2022]

Bright Idea

The Idaho Potato Commission has your last-minute Valentine's Day gift covered: The group is releasing a limited-edition fragrance, Frites by Idaho, made from distilled potatoes and essential oils, that is designed to smell like a fresh plate of french fries, United Press International reported. "The smell is too good to resist," said IPC president Jamey Higham. "This perfume is a great gift for anyone who can't refuse a french fry." And it's priced right, too, at $1.89 a bottle! [UPI, 2/10/2022]

'Murica

Still need a Valentine's Day gift idea? Here you go: KFC is collaborating with Pillow Pets for the KFC Chicken Sandwich Snuggler, a giant cuddle-yummy you can wrap around your midsection before the carbs make it there. It's only $99.99, Canoe reported. "Enjoy a snuggle after sinking your teeth into a KFC Chicken Sandwich meal or spice up any room in your home (trust us, it's impossible to miss)," KFC crowed. [Canoe, 2/7/2022]

Respect for the Elderly

Richard Taylor, 28, began arguing with his grandmother on Feb. 1 because he wanted to buy a new bed, but apparently didn't have the funds to do so, KDKA Radio reported. So the Butler County, Pennsylvania, man broke into Margaret Taylor's bedroom, after she had locked it from inside, and forcibly stole her purse, then disconnected all the phones in the house and fled in a 2006 Ford Taurus -- presumably on his way to the mattress store. Grandma headed to the neighbor's home to call 911, and a warrant was issued for Richard's arrest for robbery, theft and harassment. How will he sleep at night? Oh yeah, new mattress. [KDKA, 2/3/2022]

Step Right Up

A "dedicated employee ... (who) enjoyed his job (and) was well-liked by the people he worked with" was charged on Feb. 9 in North Versailles, Pennsylvania, after he allegedly placed a hidden camera in a urinal at the North Versailles Police Department, WPXI-TV reported. John Logan, 49, a 911 operator, is accused of placing the camera in a single-user bathroom in a hallway that is off-limits to the public. Once the incident was reported, Logan allegedly went into the bathroom and removed the SD card from the camera; investigators searching Logan's home found flash drives with videos of officers exposed while using the bathroom. He was charged with invasion of privacy and tampering with physical evidence. [WPXI, 2/10/2022]

Great Art?

The Associated Press reported on Feb. 10 that a bored security guard at an art gallery in Ekaterinburg, Russia, lent his own artistic hand to an avant-garde painting by Anna Leporskaya, adding "eyes" to two of the three faces in the painting "Three Figures." The Yeltsin Center revealed that the vandalism occurred on Dec. 7, and the painting was returned to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which owns it, for restoration. The guard, who worked for a private company providing security, used a ballpoint pen to make the small circles. The unnamed guard could face up to three months in prison. [Associated Press, 2/10/2022]

Least Competent Criminal

As over-the-road truckers protested COVID-related mandates in Canada's capital city, a 20-year-old Akron, Ohio, man wanted to get in on the action. So, on Feb. 7, he called in a bomb threat -- to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office, in Ottawa ... Ohio. The man said he was going to set off a bomb in Ottawa, then called back a second time and said he'd been shot, The Lima News reported. "When he found out he was talking to Ohio and not Canada, he said he hadn't been shot but was simply trying to waste (Canadian authorities') time and resources because he didn't agree with their mask mandate," said Sheriff's Office Cpt. Brad Brubaker. He also admitted there was no bomb. "You'd think with him being from Ohio, the 419 area code might have rung a bell," Brubaker added. [Lima News, 2/10/2022]

Inexplicable

On Feb. 6, a man in Raleigh, North Carolina, was stopped at a red light when the woman in the car next to him exited her car and approached his passenger window. She screamed at him, "Fix my car. Fix the problem," he reported to ABC11-TV. "Once I locked the car, she got more aggressive." The man wanted to drive away, but he was boxed in by cars. "Next thing I know, I seen the knife coming out -- the big machete knife -- she pulled it out from the sleeve" and started beating his passenger-side window with it. Eventually, she broke through the window. "I was just pressed against my driver-side seat ... until I could step on the gas," he said. When the light changed, he drove to a police station, where he filed a report. Raleigh police are investigating. [ABC11, 2/9/2022]

New World Order

An unnamed woman from Paterna, Spain, received a $570 fine in January for not picking up her dog's poop while she visited Benalmadena last August, Oddity Central reported. Aside from the irritation of the financial hit, how did they connect the dots ... er, drops? The notice included the street where the excrement was found and the date. Turns out, ADN Canino, a Spanish company that maintains a database of canine DNA, works with authorities all over the country -- mostly in the service of finding owners of lost dogs and preventing abuse, but now also tracking down offenders of poop-scooping laws. The woman in this case was quick to register her pet with ADN in case he was ever lost. Authorities in Benalmadena took samples and matched her dog -- and she's out $570. [Oddity Central, 2/7/2022]

The Neighbors

On Feb. 6, according to Kyong Moulton, 66, she returned to her home in Palm Bay, Florida, and found leaves on her lawn, ClickOrlando.com reported. Assuming the neighbors across the street had put them there, she fetched her leaf blower and blew them back over into their lawn. The man across the street and his mother went outside to confront Moulton, and his sister joined them. The arrest report said Moulton slapped the sister and stabbed her in the leg with a steak knife; as the man tried to help his sister, he was allegedly stabbed in the arm. Moulton also pushed the mother to the ground. Moulton denies stabbing anyone; surveillance video does not show a stabbing, and no knife was recovered. Nevertheless, Moulton was charged with two counts of aggravated battery and one count of battery on a person 65 or older. [ClickOrlando.com, 2/7/2022]

Fine Points of the Law

In New York, as legislators work out the details of legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana, some businesses have been skirting the issue by making it a "gift with purchase" of other items. Since March, it's been legal for adults to have and "transfer" small amounts of marijuana for free. But now, according to Fox40-TV, the Office of Cannabis Management is cracking down. Jim McKenzie's Hempsol CBD shop in Rochester will comply, he said on Feb. 9, and stop offering a gift to customers who buy a T-shirt or other garment. "I'm going to do what the state wants because my goal is to have a state license and do it correctly," McKenzie said. [Fox40, 2/9/2022]

LEAD STORY -- My Kingdom for an Editor

Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee is celebrated this year, and the souvenir producers are hard at work creating tchotchkes to commemorate it -- but apparently not hard enough at work to proofread their copy. People magazine reported that because of a translating error, Karl Baxter, CEO of Wholesale Clearance U.K., is trying to sell more than 10,000 pieces that trumpet the queen's "platinum jubbly" -- mugs, tea sets and plates featuring an illustration of Elizabeth and her coat of arms. Baxter hopes to salvage $44,000 from the lot and says the buyer could make a "potential profit" of $400,000. The website suggests using the items for a plate-smashing contest or a "dangerous game of Frisbee." [People, 2/1/2022]

Least Competent Criminals

First rule of being a criminal? Keep up with car maintenance. On Jan. 27, police in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, pulled over a Chevy Trax because its license plate light was burned out, TribLive reported. The driver, Ise Lamont Woods, 31, had an outstanding warrant from Jan. 5 for criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, among other charges. One of the passengers, Raphael Angel Geiger, 30, was wanted for a parole violation. And Don Lamont Carter, 26, allegedly tossed a bag with 29 grams of crack cocaine in it to a female passenger, asking her to "tuck it"; he was already wanted on a previous warrant. When police searched the vehicle, the bag of cocaine fell out of the woman's sweatshirt; she also had a crack pipe hidden in her bra. Geiger and Woods were taken into custody; Carter was released on his own recognizance. [TribLive, 1/31/2022]

Reefer Madness

A 23-year-old Thai man's harrowing ordeal was documented in late January in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, Gizmodo reported. Doctors at Chiang Mai University wrote that the young man, who had been a regular user of cannabis but had stopped for three months, had resumed his habit, with devastating effects. Two hours after hitting the bong, the man suffered a bout of psychosis and an "unwanted" erection, which prompted him to use scissors to "trim the penile skin several times." However, he went too far, eventually ending up with just an inch-long stump. At the hospital, doctors stopped his bleeding and created a new opening for his urethra, but his penis was too damaged to be reattached. He was diagnosed with substance-induced psychotic disorder; after two weeks of hospitalization and anti-psychotic drugs, he reported no more symptoms. [Gizmodo, 2/1/2022]

The Passing Parade

Maybe it was just the prospect of one more day of notoriety followed by 364 of boredom, but for Milltown Mel, it was curtains on Jan. 30, the New York Daily News reported. Mel, no relation to the better-known Punxsutawney Phil, was New Jersey's prognosticator of spring, and his untimely passing just three days before Groundhog Day left the Milltown Wranglers without a replacement for their event, which was strangely scheduled for Feb. 1 rather than Feb. 2. The Wranglers did not report a cause of death for Mel. [NY Daily News, 2/1/2022]

Suspicious

On Jan. 31, a Rhode Island Red hen was found wandering around a security checkpoint at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, the Associated Press reported. The Animal Welfare League of Arlington was summoned, and one of their employees took the bird into custody. Chelsea Jones, a spokesperson for the group, said the hen was "sweet" and "nervous." She has been adopted by a staff person who has a small farm in western Virginia. [Associated Press, 2/2/2022]

Armed and Courteous

When a couple returned to their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Jan. 30 after a few days away, they were shocked to find a messy kitchen and a young man with an assault weapon inside, The Washington Post reported. But even more stunning was the intruder's behavior: He explained that his family in east Texas had been killed and he was on the run from someone. He told the husband that his car had broken down about 100 miles away. "He was extremely embarrassed and apologetic about the situation," the husband told sheriff's officers. As he left, he dropped $200 on a table to help pay for the window he had broken to get in. None of the couple's items had been stolen, including jewelry that was left on a counter, but he had cooked some of their food, slept in a bed and bathed in the master bathroom. Investigators figured he owed the couple $15 for beers and shrimp he consumed. [Washington Post, 2/4/2022]

People With Issues

-- Georgetown University's William Treanor, dean of the law school, met with a Black student group on Feb. 1 to hear their complaints about an incoming lecturer, Ilya Shapiro, after he made comments about President Joe Biden's plans to replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. National Review reported that the students wanted to discuss a "reparations" package with Treanor, which included a designated place on campus to cry. "Is there an office they can go to?" one student asked. "I don't know what it would look like, but if they want to cry, if they need to break down, where can they go? Because we're at the point where students are coming out of class to go to the bathroom to cry." [National Review, 2/1/2022]

-- "All I wanted was some steak," one customer was heard to say in a video of a brawl that broke out at a Golden Corral in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 28, CBS Philly reported. Reports were unclear about what started the brawl, but employee Gaven Lauletta gave his account of the incident: "There was a shortage of steak and two parties were involved and one family cut in front of another family, they were taking their time and they ran out of steak and it got into a heated exchange at the tables," he said. Police said more than 40 people may have been involved in the melee, although no serious injuries were reported. [CBS Philly, 2/1/2022]

Unclear on the Concept

As she waited to check out at Walmart in Crockett, Texas, on Jan. 13, an unnamed woman was approached by Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, who "began commenting on her son's blond hair and blue eyes. She asked how much she could purchase him for," police reported. The mom thought Taylor was making a weird joke, but Taylor said she had $250,000 cash in her car, according to Messenger News. When the mom said no amount of money would be enough, Taylor increased her voice volume and her bid to $500,000 and told her she'd been wanting to buy a baby for a long time. Taylor was arrested on Jan. 18 and charged with sale or purchase of a child, a third-degree felony. [Messenger News, 1/20/2022]

Clowns

When Mark, 38, and his wife left for work one morning in January, their back garden in Belfast, Northern Ireland, looked just like it does any other day. But when the wife returned that afternoon, there was a concrete slab painted with a creepy clown face propped against the wall, the Belfast Telegraph reported. "Someone would have had to come through our gate and down the steps to place it there -- and deliberately place it so it was facing the window so we would see it," Mark said. The clown was holding a lighted candle, and on the reverse, a Bible verse was inscribed: "Let your light shine. Matthew 5:16." Mark contacted friends, neighbors and family members to see if it was a prank, or if others had received a clown, but no one had experienced anything similar. He threw the clown away, but remains creeped out: "It's so unsettling." [Belfast Telegraph, 1/26/2022]

Clive Jones, 66, a retired teacher in Derby, England, calls himself the "world's most prolific sperm donor," having fathered 129 children, with nine currently on the way. Jones has been donating his semen for nine years through Facebook, he told DerbyshireLive, because of the "happiness it brings" to donee families. But his wife of more than 40 years isn't so pleased; they now live apart. Jones explained that he drives to a park near the donee's home and collects the sample in the back of his van (complete with window curtains), then texts them to say he'll "be round in three minutes." England's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has issued a medical warning about Jones, saying, "If arrangements are made outside of the clinic environment, there can be medical and legal risks." [DerbyShire Live, 1/26/2022]

Inappropriate

Tourists and locals in Venice, Italy, got all judgy on Jan. 21 when a 30-year-old Czech woman stripped off her top and went for a swim near the Monument to the Partisan Woman, a bronze sculpture of a reclining woman that rests partly in and partly out of the water. After her dip, the unnamed woman climbed onto the monument and posed for pictures, CNN reported. "It's like going to Rome, leaping in the Trevi Fountain and then saying, 'What do you mean, you can't do this?'" said Mario Nason, who was walking by with his son at the time. "Why do people do these things in Venice that they wouldn't do elsewhere? They probably didn't know that the statue of the woman lying there was a dead partisan. But it's treating Venice like a beach." Police banned the woman from Venice for 48 hours and fined her $513. [CNN, 1/25/2022]

Bright Ideas

-- Zachary Taylor Blood, 33, of Galveston, Texas, pleaded guilty on Jan. 25 to trying to smuggle two men into the United States in a flag-draped coffin, The New York Times reported. Blood showed up at a border patrol checkpoint near Encino, Texas, on Oct. 26, where he told the agent he was hauling a "Dead guy, Navy guy" when asked about his cargo. But the agent, who was a military veteran, noticed the "rusty and dented coffin" and saw that the flag had been "crudely taped" to it. Agents explored further and found two live men, cousins, inside the coffin. One man told agents that it had been hot and hard to breathe in the box, and he had agreed to pay $6,000 to be smuggled to San Antonio. Blood will be sentenced on May 11 and could receive up to five years in federal prison. [New York Times, 1/25/2022]

-- The Irish Times reported that on Jan. 21, two men carried Peader Doyle, 66, into a post office in Carlow, Ireland, and inquired about collecting his pension. Staff and other customers became concerned about Doyle, as he seemed unresponsive, and made efforts to resuscitate him, but he was already deceased. While an investigation showed there was no foul play in his death, the two men were detained by police on Jan. 26. One of the men had gone to the post office earlier that day to try to collect Doyle's pension, but he was told the person had to be there. Both insisted that Doyle was alive but unwell when they left his home and that they helped him as he walked to the post office. They believe he died there. [Irish Times, 1/26/2022]

Sounds Like a Song

Danville, Pennsylvania, residents were warned to look out for three small monkeys run amok after a crash between two trucks on Jan. 21, The Daily Item reported. State Trooper Andrea Pelachick said a truck with 100 African monkeys on board was on its way to a laboratory when it collided with a dump truck. She tweeted that "a small number of monkeys may have fled the scene" after escaping from their carriers. The three escapees were later located and humanely euthanized. [Daily Item, 1/21/2022]

Teacher of the Year

Robin Hughes teaches special education students at SouthShore Academy in Tampa, Florida, where most of her kindergarten kids had never seen snow, United Press International reported. So Hughes got in touch with her sister, Amber Estes, who lives in Danville, Kentucky. "I said I want you to make me a snowman, and I want you to overnight him to me and see if he can make it to the school," Hughes said. "I want these children in Florida to see snow." Estes said she wrapped Lucky the snowman in foil and packed him with ice in Styrofoam, and "off he went to the local UPS Store." Hughes said her students had looks of "pure joy" on their faces when Lucky was unwrapped on Jan. 20. [UPI, 1/27/2022]

The Way the World Works

With a snowstorm bearing down on New England, residents of five homes on Hampshire Street in Metheun, Massachusetts, have a real problem: The city will no longer remove snow from their street. Mayor Neil Perry sent a letter to homeowners alerting them to the change, which he attributed to the street being private property. He told NBC10 Boston that he received an anonymous tip about the property ownership. But neighbors are not having it: "There is a storm coming this weekend. Like, God forbid 911 needs to be called in," said Collette Maksou. Cornelia Illmann hoped the city would reconsider: "We pay taxes, just as any other resident of Methuen does." However, the assistant city solicitor is holding their ground. [NBC10 Boston, 1/26/2022]

Oops

Diners eating on the deck at Flip Flops Dockside Eatery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were plunged into the Intracoastal Waterway when the deck partially collapsed on Jan. 21. NBC6 South Florida reported that three people swam to a nearby boat, where they were pulled out of the water, and two of them went to the hospital with minor injuries. Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Stephen Gollan said the dock had apparent signs of decay and areas that had visibly been recently repaired. [NBC6 South Florida, 1/21/2022]

New World Order

In an elementary school classroom in Berlin, one student is a little ... different from the others. Joshua Martinangeli, 7, is too ill to attend school in person, so a robot avatar sits at his desk and relays lessons to him at home. "The children talk to him, laugh with him and sometimes even chitchat with him during the lesson," the school's headmistress, Ute Winterberg, told Reuters. The avatar displays a blinking signal when Joshua wants to say something. The school district bought four of the avatars for use in the classrooms during COVID-19, but officials believe they'll be used beyond the pandemic. When asked whether he'll be happy for Joshua to return to school, his classmate Noah Kuessner said he likes it "either way because I like the avatar." [Reuters, 1/20/2022]

Least Competent Criminal

Augie's Grocery Deli in Jersey City, New Jersey, was the target of three robberies by the same crook over six days, Oddee.com reported. Not only did the masked perp take cash and merchandise, but he assaulted Augie Lopez, 77, and his wife, Nilda Moldonado, even though Lopez is disabled. The robberies took place on Jan. 10, 15 and 16. But when he came back on Jan. 21, Officer Maurice Johnson was lying in wait for him. "He (Johnson) was going to stand outside the store, but I told him to come inside and sit down, but don’t let yourself be seen," Lopez said. When the robber saw Johnson, he ran out the front door and into the arms of Lopez's son, Officer Agustin Lopez Jr. Travis Nealy, 34, was arrested and charged with several crimes. "I feel much, much safer now," Lopez said. [Oddee.com, 1/26/2022]