Around the Water Cooler 9/30/2011

This week the front page news was pretty varied.  The trial in Italy of  Amanda Knox, the release of the two American hikers released from the Iranian prison after more than two years and a whole lot of political debate. These reports made for some interesting stories that you probably caught on the nightly news programs.

What you might not have heard about are some of these lesser reported (for obvious reasons) stories.

I Am A Total Bitch Before My Morning Coffee

Or at least that seems to be the case for Vicki Reveron, a New York native, this week.  

"I was shocked. I didn't understand why they would do that," says the Starbucks customer who claims a staffer at coffee shop scrawled what appears to be the word "bitch" on the cup holding her caramel frappuccino.

"[M]y name is not bitch," she explains to WABC-TV. "it's Vicki."

She says the incident was the result of her and her coworkers making light of a mistake the Starbucks staffer had made. When she got back to her office, that's when she noticed the five-letter word scribbled on her cup.

After she complained to the Starbucks, a manager gave her vouchers for free coffee. BUT....she says that when she was leaving, another employee said, "Some people will do anything to get a free cup of coffee."

Talk about a bad day at Starbucks. 

As you can see from the image below, the cup clearly does not say "Vicki" (though maybe it says 'Bith'?

Seems that Vicki hasn't heard about the cardinal rule of being polite to food (or beverage) service workers.  I also, got a bit of  a chuckle that she kept explaining to everyone that her  name isn't "bitch".  The lady doth protest too much

The Tooth Toe Suck Fairy

Little Rock (Reuters) - A man known as the "Toe Suck Fairy" for a series of 1990s assaults directed at women's feet was arrested after he struck again more than a decade later, police said.

Michael Robert Wyatt, 50, was arrested on Monday after two women identified him from a photo line-up as "the man who approached them in local stores commenting on their feet and asking to suck their toes.

Earlier in the month an 83-year-old woman told police she was sitting in a chair in front of her apartment when a man approached her. He took off one of her shoes and began sucking her toes, police said.

In the 1990s, Wyatt was convicted and even served time in prison for his obsession.

One of the victims reported that Wyatt's toes were messed up.  Maybe he has toe envy or maybe he is just a freak.


The Final Crunch

DALLAS (Reuters) - The man credited with creating Doritos will be buried along with some of his beloved snack chips, his family told Reuters on Tuesday.
Arch West died September 20 of natural causes at a Dallas hospital. He was 97.

The family requested that friends and relatives who attend the graveside service be allowed to toss Doritos around the box as a tribute.

"He would think it is hilarious," said his daughter Jana Hacker, a resident of the Dallas area. "The cemetery does not mind because they are biodegradable."

I don't know that this is really all that weird...maybe just a little unusual as funeral customs go.

Still if you were going to believe their slogan "Betcha can't eat just one", it is a pretty sure bet that "no, he can't eat just one" or really any at this point.


Don't Name Your Baby Ola Mae

The 81-year-old Alabama woman was arrested this week for allegedly selling crack cocaine from her home in Prichard, a city outside Mobile. Cops reported that a search Wednesday of the octogenarian’s home turned up cocaine and prescription pills that she was peddling.



Obviously, Mama don't go nowhere
without her neck pillow.



Known as “Mama,” Robinson’s rap sheet includes previous convictions for narcotics sales. During a previous police raid at her home, investigators found a green tin (“marked sugar free mints”) inside her purse. The tin contained crack cocaine. Her purse also contained pill bottles containing Xanax and the painkiller Hydrocodone.

Despite her advanced age, Robinson is not, remarkably, the oldest crack dealer named Ola Mae. That distinction goes to Floridian Ola Mae Agee, who was sentenced last October to 18 months in prison. Agee, who was 87 at the time of her conviction for cocaine distribution, died in prison last December.

If I were going to look at this as the "glass half full" which, of course, I rarely do...I would commend Ola Mae for thinking of a creative way of earning extra cash to supplement her fixed income.

World's Worst Police Sketch

Cops in Anderson County, South Carolina have released this sketch of a man wanted in connection with a home invasion earlier this month.

The artist’s rendering is based on descriptions provided by an elderly woman whose home the man entered at 1 AM on September 11. The intruder demanded money from the victim, who told cops that the perp wore a knitted hat and had teeth in need of a dentist’s attention.

This has to be the world's worst police sketch.  Surely, no one looks quite this odd. Well, that is unless you are the person in  the next story.

What's Black and White and Weird All Over?

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian pensioner Alfred David dreams one day he'll find eternal rest in the icy waters somewhere near Antarctica, dressed in his penguin suit and laid out in a coffin decorated with penguins.

 The 79-year-old "Monsieur Pingouin" (Mr Penguin), as he is known to locals in his Brussels neighborhood, dons his favorite hooded black-and-white penguin costume as he looks back at more than 40 years of obsession.

"My ultimate dream is to be buried in a deep ocean close to where penguins live," David told Reuters.

David's life changed in May 1968 when his hip was injured in a car accident. His resulting limp was characterized by his colleagues as a waddle, and they dubbed him Mr Penguin.  After that he "embraced" all that is penguin.  He collected over 3500 penguin related items, started a penguin museum and decided to have his name legally changed to Mr. Penguin.  Mrs. Penguin, obviously didn't share the love and left him. 

Poor Mr. Penguin without his Mrs. Penguin.  This must not be one of the species that mate for life.


The Good for the Day...A couple in the Chicago area were taking pictures of their wedding party prior to the actual service.  As they stood on the dock, it collapsed.  That's not the good part but the fact that everyone was still laughing as they dried out.  Even cracked open a couple of cold ones before heading to the ceremony.




The Bad for the Day..... I am lumping this one with the "Weird for the day". Wouldn't you consider it a bad thing that you are paying lawyers and they can't get the names spelled right for visuals in the opening statement.

The Weird for the day..... OOOOPPPSSSS

The Defense teams exhibits a poster during the opening arguments of the
trial of Dr. Murray.  Do we notice a lack of detail in their poster?
Too bad spell check doesn't work on posters?