Car capers dominated last week’s foolishness, along with bare butts, ‘satanic’ verses, and a macabre tale that would have been best left to Monty Python.

PENNY FOR HIS THOUGHTS

The owner of an auto repair shop who paid a former employee with 91,500 oily pennies has been ordered by a judge to pay nearly 4 million more cents. A US federal judge ruled that Miles Walker, who owns A OK Walker Autoworks in Peachtree City, Georgia, owes $39,934 to nine workers for unpaid overtime and damages. The payments are to settle a civil lawsuit that accused Walker of retaliating against former employee Andreas Flaten in 2021.

After Flaten filed a complaint saying Walker owed him a final $915 paycheck, the employer dumped that amount in oil-covered pennies in Flaten’s driveway. The mountain of loose change came with a pay stub signed with an expletive.

Walker’s attorney, Ryan Farmer, commented, “Unfortunately, emotionally charged decisions can come back and bite you in the rear end.”

TO HEL AND BACK

There will be no more going to Hel on bus 666. The bus to the town of Hel on Poland’s Baltic coast has long been popular with tourists, but some Christian conservatives have protested the number signifying the devil on a bus leading to a place that sounds like the word “hell” in English. The local bus operator, PKS Gdynia, announced this week that bus 666 will no longer run to Hel. It said it had flipped the last number and would now run the line under the number 669.

Local media said the bus company acted under the pressure of Christian groups who had pushed for the change, but were already thinking of returning to the old number amid a public outcry over the change. The line operated under the number 666 since 2006, first as a local joke before attracting riders from across Poland and beyond. Some people rode the bus simply to say they had taken the 666 bus to Hel, Polish media reported.

Fronda, a Catholic publication, has for years called for the 666 bus to be renamed, arguing that it had Satanic overtones and that “to present the reality of eternal damnation as amusing in any way is just plain stupidity.”

SWAN SONGThe village of Manlius in upstate New York is mourning the loss of Faye, a swan who was stolen from the town’s pond along with her four cygnets. The cygnets, or baby swans, were recovered, but officials say the mama swan was eaten. “The mother swan was consumed,” Manlius Mayor Paul Whorrall said. “Sad to say, but that’s what they did.” Three teenagers were arrested on charges including grand larceny and criminal mischief in connection with the swan-napping.

NO IF’S AND’S OR BUTTS

Climate change protesters dropped their pants at the Massachusetts Statehouse during a debate on a proposed tax relief package to bring attention to what they say is the need for swifter action against the use of fossil fuels. Protesters stood, turned their backs to the Senate chamber and lowered their pants to reveal letters that spelled out STOP PASSING GAS! on their bare backsides. The protesters were all wearing pink thongs.

After being warned that they were subject to arrest, the protesters refused to leave and were placed under arrest and escorted out of the chamber, investigators said. They were charged with trespassing on state property, disorderly conduct and indecent exposure.

NOT DEAD YET

A 76-year-old woman who was declared dead at a hospital in Ecuador astonished her relatives by knocking on her coffin during her wake, and the incident has prompted a government investigation into the hospital. Relatives left the coffin behind and rushed retired nurse Bella Montoya back to the hospital in the central city of Babahoyo. “It gave us all a fright,” the woman’s son Gilberto Barbera said. Sadly, Bella died for real a week later.

THE BUS WOULD HAVE BEEN CHEAPER

A wealthy driver was fined €121,000 ($174,500) for speeding in Finland, where such penalties are calculated on the basis of an offender’s income.
Anders Wiklöf was driving 82 kph in a 50 kph zone in the Aaland Islands, an autonomous region of Finland in the Baltic Sea, when police stopped and ticketed him. Along with getting the fine, he had his driver’s license suspended for 10 days. It wasn’t the first time Wiklöf was caught driving too fast. In 2018, he was fined €63,680 ($92,000), and he had to cough up €95,000 ($137,000) five years earlier. “I really regret the matter,” Wiklof commented.