Thirteen-year-old Matilda Walden of Bentham, United Kingdom, has broken the Guinness World Record for assembling a Mr. Potato Head, United Press International reported on March 14. Walden put together the iconic toy in just 5.69 seconds. The previous record had been in place for 10 years. Her secret technique? "I had to be joining the nose and mustache together as I picked them up in one hand," she said. Walden was hoping to raise awareness of Skipton Extended Learning for All, an organization that offers services to children. Walden noted, "I have disabilities, and sometimes find that in other community events I was not welcome and people judge me." She is thinking about going for the record for assembling a Mr. Potato Head while blindfolded. [UPI, 3/14/2022]

Inexplicable

On March 12, a standoff in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, dragged on for 10 hours after Catherine Ann Imler, 57, made an odd appearance around 1:30 p.m. at another resident's home, WJAC-TV reported. Imler was naked, and she reportedly forcefully entered the home, where she stole the man's shotgun. As she walked out his back door with the gun, he asked her what she was doing, and she said, "It's my house." Imler then returned to her own home. The victim called authorities, who set up a perimeter around Imler's house but couldn't extract her until late that evening, when she was taken to UPMC Altoona with self-inflicted injuries from a sword. [WJAC, 3/14/2022]

Bright Idea

A big night out on March 12 led Leoni Fildes, 34, to a big idea: She would get an Uber from The Church Inn in Salford, United Kingdom, to Ukraine, to "help" the situation there. Fildes admits she had "one too many double pink gins and shots of Sambuca," the Manchester Evening News reported, and she was saved from her drunken philanthropic tendencies by fiscal realities: Her Uber app reported "insufficient funds" to back the 1,700-mile trip, which would have cost about 4,500 British pounds. (Not for lack of trying, though -- Uber attempted to make the transaction nine times.) "I remember when we were looking, we said, 'Oh, we'll get the comfort one.' That's dearer -- the XL one," Fildes said. "I'm so glad I didn’t have the funds available." [Manchester Evening News, 3/17/2022]

Oops, I Did It Again

NBC2-TV reported on March 6 that Anthony Antonaras, 38, of Venice, Florida, inexplicably rammed his pickup truck three times into the home of a woman he knows, damaging her garage doors and a window near the front door. When she came outside, Antonaras was sitting in the bed of the truck as “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus blared from the stereo. He told police that his “foot slipped”; but he also said that the woman is “not a good person” and that the incident was “a message.” Antonaras could be heard screaming expletives while the homeowner was speaking with the 911 dispatcher on the phone. He faces felony charges for criminal mischief and other offenses. [NBC2, 3/6/2022]

We All Need a Little Good News

Sunday, March 13, was a holiday in New Zealand: Waitangi Day. As such, Turanga library in Christchurch was scheduled to be closed for the day, but the automated door locks malfunctioned, The Guardian reported, and the unstaffed and unsecured library was used by 380 people that day -- without any ill effects. "Our self-issue machines automatically started up and 147 books were issued by customers," a library staff member said. "No book-theft alarms went off, and at this stage nothing has been reported missing, nor have we spotted any damage." Only one disgruntled customer left a note about there being "no librarians in sight." "We're grateful for the honesty of the people who used the library during this time," said Bruce Rendall, head of facilities, property and planning at Christchurch city council. [Guardian, 3/14/2022]

Least Competent Criminal

Thomas Eugene Colucci of Spring Hill, Florida, wasn't quite sure that the methamphetamine he purchased from a man he met at an area bar was the real deal, Fox13-TV reported. So on March 10, he called 911 to ask authorities to test his stash. Colucci told the Hernando County Sheriff's Office that as an experienced meth user, he knew what it should feel like, and handed two small baggies over to a deputy. He wanted officials to "put the person in trouble" who sold him the drugs, but he couldn't provide a name or contact information. Deputies did test the substance, which proved to be meth, and placed Colucci under arrest for possession. [Fox13, 3/11/2022]

Blue Light Special

Pastor Paul Knight of Hope Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is puzzled. On the morning of March 9, as he drove by his own home, he noticed that someone had placed a giant K from a Kmart store on his front lawn, the Grand Forks Herald reported. The sign is believed to be from the Kmart store that's being redeveloped in town. "I don't know who to call," Pastor Knight said. "So I am kind of making a general announcement: The people who are responsible for this, you're welcome to remove it anytime. My wife hopes it's gone by June, I think." [Grand Forks Herald, 3/14/2022]

What Are the Odds?

Katie Chisholm, 32, is only about 2% Irish, according to her ancestry.com report, but the luck o' the Irish was with her, and her mother, Mary Adams, 67, and her daughter, Charlotte Chisholm, 1, as they all were born on March 17, The Irish Sun reported. Katie, of Omaha, Nebraska, says she and her family "just feel like the luckiest people ever. My husband's family has a much stronger Irish heritage -- his mother's maiden name is O'Connor. St. Patrick's Day was always a major family holiday for him growing up." As for those odds of three generations of women born on March 17? According to the Sun, they're about 1 in 100,000. [Irish Sun, 3/16/2022]

You Had One Job

On March 14, as the Norwegian Escape, a 164,000-ton cruise ship that can carry 4,000 passengers, attempted to pull away from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, it hit the seabed, damaging the ship's hull and putting an end to the rest of the seven-day cruise. According to CNN, Norwegian Cruise Lines said the grounding was the result of wind; passengers were evacuated and will receive a full refund, plus a credit toward a future cruise. Passengers didn't seem to mind being stranded in paradise; one tweeted that "morale is high." [CNN, 3/16/2022]

Unclear on the Concept

Jackson, Wisconsin, dentist Scott Charmoli, 61, was convicted on March 10 of five counts of health care fraud and two counts of making false statements about his patients' treatment, The Washington Post reported, after a scheme in which he drilled into and broke his patients' teeth so he would have to charge them to fix the damage. His plan increased his income from $1.4 million in 2014 to $2.5 million a year later. Federal prosecutors reported that Charmoli inserted more crowns in his patients' mouths than 95% of Wisconsin dentists between 2016 and 2019; one assistant testified that the change in strategy made her uncomfortable and she ended up leaving the practice. Charmoli is scheduled for sentencing in June. [Washington Post, 3/16/2022]

Some romantic relationships are full of drama and strife, so maybe Sandra, 28, of Budapest, Hungary, has come up with a better model. According to Oddity Central, Sandra has fallen for Luffancs, a plastic model of an airplane. After breaking up with her latest human boyfriend in January, Sandra bought Luffancs for $660 and fell madly in love. "I don't know why I love him, I just love him," she said. Sandra works in the aviation industry and is around airplanes every day, but says she will never cheat on Luffancs. In fact, she doesn't know if she'll ever date another human being. "Planes are more reliable as partners," she said. [Oddity Central, 3/10/2022]

Unclear on the Concept

When Bshar Ahmed, 30, of Youngstown, Ohio, was arrested on March 7, he told police that he was selling marijuana from the gas station where he was working the midnight shift because he just got out of prison and he needs the money, WKBN-TV reported. The owner of the station called officers about Ahmed and produced a bag, which Ahmed admitted was his, that contained bags of weed and a loaded .38-caliber semiautomatic handgun, along with suspected methamphetamine, crack cocaine, indeterminate pills and over $1,000 in cash. Ahmed's previous convictions bar him from possessing a firearm. [WKBN, 3/8/2022]

The Neighbors

When ya gotta go ... At 4:40 p.m. on March 4, Kenneth Clark Carlyle, 64, walked up his neighbor's driveway in his birthday suit and relieved himself, No. 2 style, on the neighbor's glass patio table, The Smoking Gun reported. The whole thing was caught on not one, but two "separate angles of the victim's home security video footage," the police report noted. Clearwater, Florida, officers arrived at Carlyle's RV camper, where they spoke to him "through the door ... and he was still visibly naked and highly uncooperative." The bond on this incident is $250, but he was already in trouble from a December infraction, so he remains in the pokey. [Smoking Gun, 3/7/2022]

Unexpected Trip

Three Michigan men ice fishing in a homemade shanty on Saginaw Bay on March 6 went for the ride of their lives as winds nearing 50 mph pushed their structure about a mile across the ice, the Associated Press reported. The men had spent the night before in the shanty and were aware that a storm was approaching, but thought they could ride it out. But the next morning, someone onshore saw one of them struggling with the hut as it scooted over the ice. It eventually ended up about 1.5 miles offshore before deputies arrived; the men were able to return to shore without rescue equipment and were unharmed. [Associated Press, 3/7/2022]

Surprise!

As construction crews worked to remodel the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, California, on March 9, they made an alarming discovery, NBC News reported. The building, which has been out of use since 2005, was the final resting place for "an unidentified, decayed body," said Lt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. "We found remains best described as mummified," he said. "The conditions in the walls were such that the body was preserved in good condition." He said authorities will obtain fingerprints to try to identify the deceased. "Any theory is possible," Kelly said, "... from someone who got in behind the wall and became trapped ... to someone put the person there." [NBC News, 3/10/2022]

It's a Head-Scratcher

On March 3 in a quiet Denver neighborhood, someone broke into a box truck parked along a street and stole a box marked "Science Care," KDVR-TV reported. Inside the box were a number of human heads that were being transported for use in medical research. The thieves also stole a dolly. Isaac Fields, who lives nearby, was perplexed: Why was the truck parked in his neighborhood? Where was the driver? Why would someone steal human remains? Police wouldn't provide many details because the case is still open. [KDVR, 3/5/2022]

Creepy

Yes, this item is about clowns. Or at least circuses. Or circus train cars. In Nash County, North Carolina, nine railroad cars from the 1960s Barnum & Bailey circus that had been abandoned in the woods caught fire on March 10, WRAL-TV reported. The cars were just outside the city limits of Spring Hope, where they were stored after the North Carolina Department of Transportation bought them in 2017, hoping to refurbish them for passenger service. Later they were put up for auction, but more recently the cars were a popular destination for urban explorers and people seeking shelter. At least four of the cars appeared to be badly damaged by the fire; the cause of the blaze is under investigation. [WRAL, 3/10/2022]

People With Issues

Prosecutors have accused 20-year-old Mauricio Damian Guerrero of Bensalem, Pennsylvania, of burglary after he traveled to Somersworth, New Hampshire, and hid in the attic of a woman he had met on the website OnlyFans, WKBN-TV reported on March 7. Guerrero allegedly descended from the attic to take video of the woman while she was sleeping, stole some of her underwear, and planned to place a tracking device on her car. Police were called after someone at the home heard a noise; Guerrero was found on the roof of the home. He was released on bail and ordered to wear a tracking device. [WKBN, 3/7/2022]

Ewwwww

U.S. Customs and Border Protections agents probably rarely having a boring day, but between Feb. 19 and 25, officers in Philadelphia came across some particularly skin-crawly cargo: about 300 leeches from Bulgaria, NBC New York reported. The medicinal leeches, which arrived in jars distributed among six separate air cargo shipments, were headed for Connecticut, Florida and Illinois, but they'll never make it: That type of leech, the Hirudo medicinalis, is a protected species and can't be traded internationally. Instead, they were turned over to federal wildlife agents. [NBC New York, 3/10/2022]

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Dot Grant, 52, attended the musical "Bat Out of Hell" with her family at the Edinburgh Playhouse in Scotland in February, Edinburgh Live reported. It was a real treat, as it was her first theater visit since the pandemic began two years earlier. But as Dot tapped her thigh and sang along quietly under her mask, one of the ushers "flashed their torch" at her before the intermission. Dot couldn't figure out why: "I did not think I was doing anything wrong." As the performance continued in the second half, a security worker motioned for Dot to come to the aisle, and she was removed from the theater and told she was "at a musical theater show, not a concert." "I was surrounded by eight men, which made me feel very uncomfortable and uneasy," Dot said. "People had been complaining about my actions of singing and dancing in my seat, that it was a distraction and off-putting for the cast. I waved my hands a few times, but I didn't think that was wrong." The theater said that audience participation "had never been encouraged." [Edinburgh Live, 2/23/2022]

Least Competent Criminal

U.S. border agents at the San Ysidro crossing in California stopped a 30-year-old man driving a truck on Feb. 25 as he attempted to cross from Mexico, the Associated Press reported on March 8. Agents found 52 live reptiles tied up in small bags -- not so weird, except they were "concealed in the man's jacket, pants pockets, and groin area," CBP said in a statement. Nine snakes and 43 horned lizards were seized. Some species were endangered. The driver was a U.S. citizen. [AP, 3/8/2022]

Omni, a plant-based pet food company in Britain, is offering a lucky(?) few dog owners more than $6,000 to "record their experience of introducing their dog to a plant-based diet, monitoring their bowel movements, stool odor, health, energy levels, behavior, sleep pattern and physical attributes, such as weight, skin and fur condition" over a period of two months, according to the company's website. Omni will provide a free supply of its pet food for the gig and will cover the cost of visits to a pet nutritionist, who will oversee the pets' transition to plant-based food. Those dog owners who successfully complete the poop-monitoring period will earn the aforementioned cash for their work, while their dogs will receive a supply of dog toys and vegan treats. Applications will be accepted on Omni's website through March 31. [People.com, 2/25/2022]

Check, Please!

Michael Spressler, 58, of Brick, New Jersey, thought he had broken a tooth when he bit into a raw clam and felt something hard in his mouth during a Presidents Day weekend visit to his favorite Jersey Shore seafood restaurant, The Lobster House. “I thought one of my molars cracked,” Spressler told NJ Advance Media. But instead of one of his own pearly whites, Spressler found a perfectly round white pearl. “I’ve been eating clams all my life. This is the first time this ever happened to me,” Spressler said. Indeed, the odds of finding a pearl in a clam are said to be roughly 1 in 10,000, and The Pearl Source website says the little gem, which Spressler's wife, Maria, would like to have set in a piece of jewelry, could be worth anywhere from $50 to $100,000. [NJ.com, 3/1/2022]

Golden Ticket

On Oct. 26, 1984, Northwestern student Michael Cole attended a basketball game alone, having been unable to find a friend to use the extra ticket he had purchased for $8.50. Thirty-eight years later, on Feb. 27, Cole, now 55, watched that spare ticket, which he had held onto as a keepsake, sell for $468,000 at auction. What was so special about the ticket? It just happens to be the only known intact ticket from Michael Jordan's debut game with the Chicago Bulls. Cole, whose 2012 Kia Sorento died just one week before the auction ended, said he plans to use some of his earnings to replace it with "a sensible used car." [NBC5 Chicago, 2/28/2022]

A Little Faith in Humanity

Perhaps it's a sad critique of the world we live in when a story like the following is classified as "weird" -- but greed abounds in this modern age, so when an act of kindness rises above the usual dreck, it is weird news indeed. Eduardo Martinez of Honduras, who works near Broadway in New York, probably expected a more typical ending to his story: On March 2, as he rushed to get to work through jam-packed Times Square, Martinez dropped his wallet. Losing his IDs and personal effects would have been devastating enough, but Martinez also had $4,000 in cash inside his billfold. As he waded through the crowd of tourists and searched the ground, two police officers approached and informed him that the wallet had been picked up by a fellow commuter and turned over safe and sound -- with all $4,000 intact. Here's to happy endings! [UPI.com, 3/3/2022]

Animal Adventures

-- The Lang family of Whidbey Island Station in Washington owns five horses, but on the morning of March 2, only four could be found. The family began a search and discovered that Blaze, the missing horse, was in deep trouble -- 15 feet deep, to be precise. The horse had broken through a barrier around 10 a.m. and fallen down a concrete well. Rescue workers from the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station dropped in and sedated the horse, and North Whidbey and Central Whidbey Fire & Rescue crews were able to get a harness around Blaze and lift all 2,000 pounds of equine out of the hole using an excavator from a neighbor's farm. Blaze received an IV and was treated for a few minor cuts, but otherwise was unhurt in the incident. "If he had gone down any other way, he wouldn't be alive," owner Karl Lang told KING-TV 5. "Luckily he went down heinie first." [KING-TV 5, 3/3/2022]

-- A 15-year-old poodle named Snowball has been reunited with his owner, Kathy, of Norfolk, Virginia. What kept the two apart? Only about five years and more than 900 miles. Snowball, who arrived recently at the Cape Coral Animal Shelter in Florida with matted fur, infected eyes and ears and severe dehydration, had gone missing from Kathy's home in Norfolk some five years ago. But thanks to the microchip Kathy had implanted in her bestie, the poodle was quickly identified, and Kathy booked a flight shortly after receiving a call from the shelter. Fox 4 Southwest Florida reports that Snowball's eyes have been treated, his vaccinations have been updated, and his new health certificate will allow him to fly home with Kathy. [Fox 4, 2/28/2022]

Did Somebody Say "Shot"?

On Feb. 27, the Smoking Gun reported, Christina Blair, 33, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, began honking her horn and yelling obscenities at Gabriel Chavez while the two drove their cars on an Albuquerque road. Blair told police she had become enraged upon seeing Chavez's "Vaccinated" bumper sticker. After Blair hit Chavez's car with an object (later revealed to be a water bottle) at a red light, Chavez accidentally backed into Blair's car. The two pulled into a Walgreen's parking lot, where Chavez expected to exchange insurance information; instead, Blair pulled a handgun from her car and racked the weapon. Chavez called 911, and police were able to use Chavez's cellphone video to acquire Blair's license plate info and track it to her residence. Blair was taken into custody and booked on a count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. [Smoking Gun, 3/2/2022]

Two-Drink Minimum

The buggy-drifting skills of Ray Byler, 20, of Sigel, Pennsylvania, sound impressive; his alcohol tolerance, not so much. Byler was charged with a misdemeanor for driving under the influence and also was cited for careless and reckless driving. Police began following the Amish buggy he was driving and watched as Byler sped up at a turn and locked the brakes, sending sparks flying. According to Trib Live, when Byler pulled over to let the officers pass and they asked if he was OK, Byler's response was slurred, and he smelled of alcohol. When asked if he'd been drinking, Byler told the officers he'd had "a couple of beers." Byler was allowed to stand by his agitated horse's side after the field sobriety test; police said he refused to take the blood draw test at the hospital. [TribLive.com, 2/24/2022]

Hanging Tough

Looking to add some intensity to your workout routine? You could always take your inspiration from Roman Sahradyan's latest Guinness World Record. All you need is excellent pull-up technique, 60 seconds ... and a helicopter. As reported by India Today, Sahradyan posted a video last October that went viral: In it, the Armenian performed 23 pull-ups in one minute, all while hanging from the landing skid of a helicopter floating several feet off the ground. The achievement earned Sahradyan an official Guinness World Record for the "most pull-ups from a helicopter in one minute," and the Instagram video posted by Guinness World Records has tallied more than 125,000 likes. One commentor gave a shout-out to the unsung hero of the video: "The real record is for the pilot for not crashing the helicopter." [India Today, 2/25/2022]