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Crime's Bad Spell

True story: A guy in San Francisco walks into a Bank of America and writes on a deposit slip, "This iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag." While waiting in line to hand the note to someone, he gets nervous—and walks across the street to Wells Fargo, where he hands the note to a teller. She reads it and, figuring the guy isn't too sharp, tells him she can't accept a deposit slip from Bank of America. Looking defeated, the guy says, "OK," and leaves. The Wells Fargo teller calls the police, who arrested the guy a few minutes later—standing in line back at Bank of America.

A Pup-sicle?

A Pennsylvania taxidermist offers a strange service: When your pet dies, you can have it freeze-dried. The guy says it's cheaper and simpler than traditional stuffing. It would cost about $1,900 to see Spot stuffed, but only about $600 to get him freeze-dried.

We figured you had to know. …

Speed Trap

Dale Rooks, a school crossing guard in Florida, tried everything to get cars to slow down through the school zone. But nothing worked. … until he took a blow dryer and wrapped it in electrical tape, making it look like a radar gun.

Dale just points the thing at cars, and it's incredible how quickly they hit the brakes.

"It's almost comical," Dale says. "It's amazing how well it works."

Beaky Vac-Zilla!

Never mess with the wrong end of a vacuum cleaner. … especially if you're a cockatiel. Just ask Beaky, a 16-year-old pet cockatiel from Locking, England, who learned that lesson the hard way. While his owner, Helen Gooding, was vacuuming the house, Beaky decided to attack the nozzle.

Thwoop!

Yep, you guessed it. Beaky got sucked into the pipe and got stuck about halfway up. Unharmed but feeling most fowl, the little feathered critter just "squawked and scrabbled," says Helen, who didn't know what to do. So she called the fire department.

And how'd they rescue the cheeky Beaky? One of the firemen blew into the opposite end of the pipe and, thwock!, Beaky popped out on the floor.

One of the firemen said Beaky "was soon twittering away," but the ruffled tweeter refused to come out of his cage the next day.

It apparently wasn't Beaky's first fight with a household appliance. He'd attacked Helen's computer one day and pecked the button that opens the CD-ROM drawer. Whap! Beaky was knocked off the desk and was down for the count.

Says Helen, "He's a little character."

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