Welcome back to the first Jolly Monday of the new year.  I hope you’ve all had great holidays, and that you have now had your fill of parties, shopping, cooking, wrapping, baking, over-eating and over-whatever-else you overdid.  I bet you are all just chomping at the bit to get back to work, settle back into your routines, and start working on those diets that seem to be a part of everyone’s new year resolutions.  So let’s start this first week of the new year out right, with some chuckles and laughs, shall we? And by the way … you get leftovers today, for I am too tired to bake this morning!

Where did I leave that darned car?

Did you ever go someplace, say a mall or office complex, then come out and forget quite where you parked your car?  It happens to me all the time, and it is not unusual to see me walking up and down the aisles of a parking lot, hitting the ‘lock’ button on the keypad of the car, trying to listen for the ‘meep meep’ sound it makes.  Back in the day, I used to have a long CB antenna that I put a mickey mouse ball on, so my car was much easier to find than it is now.

This German man, whose name I do not know, took parking lot forgetfulness to a whole new level.  He parked his car in a lot in 1997, and when he came out, he looked all over but could not find it.  Eventually he contacted the police, assuming the car, a Volkswagen, had been stolen.

Fast forward to November 2017, when crews are preparing to demolish an old industrial building in Frankfurt, but are stymied by the lone car sitting in the otherwise empty parking lot.  Police were called and eventually traced the owner, the now 76-year-old man who had believed for 20 years that his car was stolen.  No word on whether the car still ran or not.

Was it a traffic signal … or a monkey’s butt?

Fact: Sometimes, certain baboons and other monkeys have quite red butts.  I will not go into the details on this post, but for more than everything you ever wanted to know about monkey butts, you can visit Animal Facts Encyclopedia   Some cool info there, but for today I have another purpose.

In Zunyi City, Guizhou Province, China, a woman was driving down a busy street, when she came to a busy intersection, glanced up at the overhead pole, and saw a flash of red.  She did what any of us … well, most of us … would do and applied her breaks, thinking the light was red. And was promptly rear-ended by the driver behind her.

Turns out that the ‘red light’ the woman saw was actually the rear end of a golden monkey that had escaped from a nearby circus!  The circus manager has agreed to pay for all damages.

A worthy fight?

I have a bit of a temper … no comments from friends or family members, please … and though, like a fine wine, I have mellowed wih age, I am still not beneath taking a punch at an inanimate object, such as a wall, refrigerator or fuel pump from time to time.  But I’ve never had to punch an ATM, for in my experience, they always give me precisely the amount of cash I asked for, and in that way we get on quite well.

So picture 23-year-old Michael Joseph Oleksik, who stopped at the Cocoa, Florida Wells Fargo ATM to get out a bit of cash.  He was apparently in a hurry to get to work, but the machine gave him … no, not too little cash, but too much cash!  Mr. Oleksik was frustrated and not sure what to do, so … he got out of the car and beat the heck out of the ATM machine!  Yes, you heard right … he caused more than $5,000 worth of damage to the machine!  Of course, the incident, including his license plate, was recorded by security cameras.

Mr. Oleksik called the bank a short time later, apologizing for the damage he caused, but nonetheless the bank is pressing charges.  Now, I am not defending nor condoning his assault on the poor machine, but I think the man should be commended for his honesty.  First, he did not just pocket the extra money, as many would have done.  Second, he called and ‘fessed up”.  But instead, Wells Fargo pressed charges and poor Mr. Oleksik was arrested on felony criminal mischief charges.

He didn’t know when to ‘clam’ up …

Nelson Agosto went out to a restaurant in Stuart, Florida, hoping to enjoy a nice steamed clam dinner.  There was his first mistake … shrimp or scallops are much nicer.  Anyway, the dinner came and apparently there weren’t enough clams to suit Mr. Agosto, so what did he do?  He dialed 9-1-1 and proceeded to tell the dispatcher of his dissatisfaction with the size of his meal.

The dispatcher repeatedly tells he man he will need to call the ‘non-emergency’ number, but he insists that he needs an officer to come.  After he called 9-1-1 a second time, Mr. Agosto got his wish … an officer did arrive … and issued Mr. Agosto a summons for misuse of 9-1-1!

Turn that thermostat down!!!

I’ve had some high electric bills in my day, and when I retired in 2008, we went on the budget billing plan so that we pay a fixed amount … just over $200 per month, and then have one ‘catch up’ month at the end of the year.  Every year but one, we have gotten lucky and actually used less than we had paid.  But my highest ever bill was probably somewhere in the ballpark of $300.  I can only imagine the shock Mary Horomanski of Erie, Pennsylvania, must have felt when she opened her latest electric bill and saw …

That’s right, folks … Mary must have kids who cannot remember to close the door or turn out a light, for she found herself owing more than $284 billion!!!  I thought it was nice that Penelec gave them a whole year to pay, don’t you?

Mary said at first she counted the decimal places, then took her glasses off, blinked several times, then put them back on.  But there were still all those zeros! Then she hit on another possibility …

“We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong!”

Fortunately, it turned out to be an error in decimal positioning, and the matter was cleared up once Ms. Horomanski reported the matter to Penelec.  Penelec representative Marc Durbin said, “I can’t recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars. We appreciate the customer’s willingness to reach out to us about the mistake.”  What, Marc, did you think perhaps she might have just gone ahead and paid the bill???

Now, folks, since you all have this one last day off, get out there and enjoy it!  Don, Hortie and Gronda are probably going to spend it lying on the sunny Florida beaches, while Hugh and I are freezing our patooties off!  But however you spend this last day of the holiday season, keep safe and enjoy life, okay?  Remember to share those beautiful smiles with everybody you see today, for they cost you nothing and mean so much to somebody else.  A short personal story … one of my favourite checkout dudes at my local grocery happened to be on duty when I went last week, and as I finally got to the front of he line, I said my usual, “Hey, how are you doing today?”, to which he responded, “A whole lot better now, ‘cause you’re one of my favourite customers!”  Do you know … can you even imagine how that melted my heart and made me smile for the rest of the day?  Remember, my friends … it’s the little things like that that mean so much to us all.  Keep safe and warm … Love and Hugs to you ALL!!!