From The Price is Right to chickens roaming the Pentagon, heart-warming stories about kitties and crocodiles, and a story from New Zealand that might just be the funniest thing we’ve ever heard, the week was as weird and wacky as ever.

FREE-DUMB FIGHTER!

A man who wanted to join the protests in Ottawa over COVID-prevention measures called in a bomb threat so police would waste their time chasing it, but he called the wrong Ottawa – a village in Ohio. The 20-year-old Einstein from Akron, Ohio, called the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office twice, the first time to make a bomb threat, and then in a second call he said he had been shot. That’s when the man found out he was talking with someone in Ohio. “He wasn’t paying attention and just called the first number he found,” said police. “He said he was mad about mask mandates.” The sheriff’s office said it would ask the county prosecutor to consider charges against the man.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS

As countries around the world attempted to disperse their own anti-vax protests, including French police resorting to lobbing tear gas at protesters on the Champs-Élysées, authorities in Wellington, New Zealand, turned to a different, more devastating, tactic: blasting Barry Manilow and out-of-tune Celine Dion songs, along with the ‘90s dance hit “Macarena” on loop, to break up a convoy encamped outside Parliament. Protesters apparently countered with the Twisted Sister anthem, “We’re Not Going To Take It.”

THE EYES HAVE IT
A Russian gallery says one of its security guards vandalized an avant-garde painting on loan from the country’s top art repository by drawing eyes on the picture’s deliberately featureless faces. The painting “Three Figures” by Anna Leporskaya, dates from the 1930s and shows three torsos and heads with hair but no facial features; the vandal drew eyes on two of them with a ballpoint pen. The Yeltsin Center in Ekaterinburg sent the damaged painting for restoration to the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which owns it, and the vandal faces up to three months in prison.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

A wandering chicken was caught sneaking around a security area at the Pentagon. The loose hen was found near the US Department of Defense headquarters, reported the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, Virginia. “Apparently, the answer to ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’ is to get to the Pentagon,” the group posted. The chicken was taken into custody by one of the league’s employees. It’s unclear where the chicken came from or how she got to the Pentagon. But “Henny Penny,” a Rhode Island Red gained further notoriety when Jimmy Fallon performed a song about her on the on “The Tonight Show.” “Are you a normal clucker or an undercover spy?” he sang.

NEW HAMPSHIRE’S OK TOO

A Massachusetts contestant on “The Price Is Right” was hoping to win a getaway to some tropical locale during a recent appearance on the game show, but instead, won a trip to neighbouring New Hampshire. She won by correctly guessing the value of the prize was $7,696 instead of $9,676, but confessed she was hoping for somewhere a bit more exotic, like Tahiti, rather than a state she said she’s already visited “a million times.”

TIRELESS EFFORT
A wild crocodile with a used motorcycle tire stuck around its neck for six years was finally freed by an Indonesian bird catcher. The 4.5-m. saltwater female croc had become an icon to the people in Palu, Central Sulawesi, and was often seen on the city’s river with the tire around its neck becoming increasingly tighter, running the risk of choking her. In early January, Tili, a bird catcher who recently moved to the city, became determined to rescue it after he saw her frequently sunbathing at a nearby estuary. “I have experiences and skills in catching animals, not only birds, but farm animals that are released from the cage,” he said, adding, “I believe I can rescue the crocodile with my skills.” He did.

ALL IN ALL, A NET GAIN

The owners of a New Mexico home were doubly surprised recently to find a burglar in their house and then to have him apologize, give them money, and leave embarrassed. The man had slept, bathed, dined, and had some beer at the home on the outskirts of Santa Fe before the owners returned and discovered him. He had an AR-15 scoped rifle but didn’t threaten them or take any of their jewellery or other belongings. Instead, he gave the homeowners US $200 as “reimbursement for the window he broke.”

The suspect also shared a bit of his story, telling the owners he was running from someone and that his family had been killed in east Texas and said his car had broken down outside Santa Fe. The suspect left the home with his duffel bag and gun, walking down a ditch. His alleged larcenies totaled $15, the police report said.

THE CAT CAME BACK

A Maine family that gave up on a lost family cat is being reunited – more than six years and 2,400 km. later. Denise Cilley said she was shocked to get a voicemail last week announcing her cat, Ashes, had been located in Florida. Ashes disappeared in 2015 during a 10th birthday celebration for her daughter. A veterinarian’s office determined the kitty’s identity, thanks to an implanted microchip, but how she got to Florida remains a mystery. “I have interrogated her quite strictly and she is not talking,” said family friend Janet Williams, who helped return Ashes to Maine.