The Most Ridiculous News Stories of the Week

In Ohio, "Guns don't kill people, bullets do" or so the saying goes, but 59-year-old Verlin Alsept was a bit unclear of the concept that you still need that gun: He entered a Family Dollar Store in Dayton and threatened the cashier with a bullet — a single .38 caliber round he pulled from his pocket.  The 59-year-old man asked the cashier for all the money in the cash register. Unfazed by the threatening bullet, she declined, and he left the store empty-handed. A nearby private security guard at the Westown Shopping Center — alerted by the cashier — quickly ran the man down as bystanders called police.

Gun? No, just a bullet...

In Woodstock, Georgia, residents have set up a memorial along a highway where Bob the Turkey, the town’s unofficial mascot, lived and died. Bob was hit by a car and killed near the intersection where he lived. Bob was buried near the city limit sign and people have flocked to the area to set up a makeshift memorial with flowers. Some residents want to see the area turned into a park. There are no plans for a park, but a permanent plaque in the shape of a turkey will be erected at the burial site.

RIP, Bob

In India, a high school teacher, with a monthly salary of around $700, was astounded when a routine online check of his bank account showed a balance of almost $10 billion.  Parijat Saha, from the town of Balurghat in West Bengal state, said he had checked his State Bank of India account online last Sunday to confirm reception of a $200 interest payment.  "Instead I saw this astronomical amount," he immediately called a friend he knew at the bank to point out what was obviously a major accounting error.

Not a billionaire... :(

Here's a bad family outing.  An Illinois mother is accused of bringing her five-year-old son with her on a bank stickup led by her boyfriend.  Brandon Stancliff allegedly armed himself with a kitchen knife and grabbed a bandanna for a disguise while Lauri Ruble strapped her son into a car seat before they drove to the bank.

A New Zealand farm lobby group says sheep shearing has the potential to become an Olympic sport. Just don’t count on seeing it at London next summer or Rio in 2016.  The “time has come to elevate shearing’s sporting status to the ultimate world stage,” the New Zealand Federated Farmers said in a statement, adding that the world’s top shearers are “athletes who take it to another level.”

Another level? 

Those are your stories, enjoy your weekend!

~Brent