View from the North 40

It’s no secret. I’ve discussed this openly, even here in my column: One of the great ironies in the history of the world, or my own life — whichever is greater — is that I have to read the news every weekday morning.

That is so depressing. You just don’t know.

I’m forced to do it, actually, for a paycheck. It’s like I’ve prostituted myself — figuratively speaking, because if I had to earn a living as, you know, an employee of the oldest profession, I would go broke and starve to death inside of a week. That is so depressing. Really, you just don’t know.

But I digress.

As a sort of rebellion against having to read serious news — about civic matters, my neighbors, my community, mainstream sports (aka, any activity that does not include a horse), politics (oh, the horror — you just don’t know), and crime and mayhem of all manner — in my free time I only read articles that fall under the heading “weird news.”

OK, occasionally I read celebrity news, which is almost the same thing sometimes, but I feel that it’s important to point out that they have their own distinct categories in the news media so that you will see that I’m not single-minded. I am widely read on different topics.

This week, while cruising the “weird sites” online I came upon newsoftheweird.com’s “No Longer Weird” list. What this is is a list of what seems like weird news topics, but these things happen so often that we should consider them mainstream. That’s weird, right?

Here’s a random selection of those unweird topics that caught my eye out of the list of 66. Yes, of course I had to comment on each of them:

• Funeral home owner neglects/mixes up bodies. (That’s just tragic.)

• Some countries prohibit giving children certain names. (Hey, I’ve written about this. … I’m such a cliché.)

• Global warming caused by animal methane. (Must be cows, or maybe pigs; horses wouldn’t do such a thing.)

• Family accidentally leaves behind a kid at a highway rest stop. (My aunt did this to one of my cousins, only he was left in a shopping cart in the grocery store parking lot. True story, so that makes my family a cliché, too.)

• Overdue-library-book scofflaws actually go to jail. (This might happen to me one day, if the librarians get sick of my tardiness. Nice to know it happens with others — maybe we can start a book gang in prison. Solidarity, my bookish brothers and sisters!)

• DUI tickets for "driving" a bicycle [or horse or riding lawn mower or etc.]. (They can’t do that, can they? My horse was totally sober and in charge.)

• Gasoline thieves check quantity in tank by using a match or lighter to peer inside. (Please note that the presence of this topic in this list means that this has happened more than once. It is my hope for mankind that, at least, it didn't happen twice to the same person.)

• Japanese men committing suicide because of overwork. (Note to self: show this to boss.)

• The annual student cheating riots in Bangladesh. (Annual? Those dudes have issues.)

• Pack of animals breaks into liquor cabinet or fermenting vat, get drunk. (I have never heard of this. Maybe he meant to write teenagers instead of animals. That I've heard of.)

• A loved one died at home, but the relative never gets around to burying him or her. (Ew.)

• African nation's rumors of people with power to make penises disappear. (What?! How did this get to be a thing? Note to husband: stay out of Africa.)

• Unlabeled urn with loved one's ashes mistakenly stolen or sold at yard sale. (How are all these dead folks getting lost and waylaid?)

• Accidental bombing of house by airliner's “blue ice.” (Great, now I have this to worry about. I don’t want to have to build an airplane sewage-bomb shelter.)

• Elderly motorist makes wrong turn, gets lost for days. (I wonder if there is some type of cosmic connection between this topic and the lost and waylaid remains of one’s dearly departed. Apparently, these things have happened too often to be a coincidence.)

(You can learn something from everything you read, even if it’s what not to read at [email protected].)