Unusual News Roundup

Is That a Baby Pickle in Your Pants, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Stripper stories are always good, but this one is one of the best I’ve read in a while.

Police say a 13-year-old boy was charged with abducting an exotic dancer when she allegedly showed up for an appointment at what turned out to be a vacant house in Virginia Beach. Police spokeswoman Rene Ball says when the woman entered the house on Nov. 16, she realized her client was a juvenile and tried to leave. But the boy pointed a shotgun at her and ordered her to dance for him.

Ball says the woman tried to call 911 on her cell phone, but the boy grabbed the phone. The woman bit the boy's hand, broke free and ran to her car.

Crazy kids and their rampant hormones. Couldn’t this kid just have found some dirty magazines like everyone else does?

I’ll Have What the Salamander’s Having

Although according to this website tiger salamanders may live past fifteen years in captivity, one little salamander is showing great longevity, as mentioned in the Fort Wayne Gazette.

MUNCIE — Salamanders usually live four or five years in the wild, but a 28-year-old tiger salamander named Survivor outlived his owner.

Teacher Gene Frazier bought “Sur” as a tadpole in 1976 and raised him on bits of lunch meat. Sur amused Frazier’s students and spent much of his life in the classroom. But when Frazier died at age 73 last year, the amphibian was left to Frazier’s wife, Marilyn.

Dolphins Are Cool

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Another reason why I’m a big fan of dolphins.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A pod of dolphins saved a group of swimmers from a predatory 10-foot great white shark off the northern New Zealand coast, a newspaper reported Tuesday

The unusual incident occurred Oct. 30 when lifeguard Rob Howes took his 15-year-old daughter Niccy and two of her friends swimming near the town of Whangarei, The Northern Advocate said.

The dolphins, "started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howes told the newspaper. When Howes tried to break away from the protective group, two of the bigger dolphins herded him back, he said.

Howes then spotted what he described as a 10-foot great white shark cruising toward them, but the man-eater was apparently repelled by the ring of dolphins and swam away.

"It was only about six feet away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face," he said.

Howes realized what the dolphins were doing: "They had corralled us up to protect us."

Another lifeguard, Matt Fleet, on patrol in a lifeboat, saw the dolphins circling the swimmers and slapping their tails on the water to keep them in place. Fleet told the newspaper he also had a clear sighting of the shark.