God bless America.

First published Feb 23rd 2006

In a nation where the country's vice president can get away with shooting a man whilst hunting without a license, it's expected that odd events will transpire. But I'm never quite prepared for the daily shocks delivered by the Associated Press. OK, so Swiss zookeepers are more worried about their swans' sex lives than bird flu, German boys are tying themselves to foldaway beds for fun and Taiwanese drunk drivers can choose to either pay a fine or play mah-jong with the elderly as a punishment, but Americans win hands down for the most consistently weird and stupid news stories.

So, imagine the scene. You're in Oklahoma, and you've just sat down with your girlfriend and her family for a lovely home cooked meal. Everything's going swimmingly well, and so you take your girlfriend by the hand, lead her into the back room, hold her head in your hands, move your face closer to hers and bite off her nose. That's right. A man in Oklahoma actually bit off his girlfriend's nose. And if that wasn't bad enough, he swallowed it. So now, some poor girl is wandering the states of America with no nose because it got digested by her boyfriend.

Whatever, it's just one twisted man, right? This sort of craziness surely can't permeate the entire United States, right? Well, in Los Angeles, 1500 miles away from Oklahoma, a 16-year-old girl who lost a leg when she was hit by a car has had her artificial limbs stolen, for the second time in three months. With a combined value of $28 000, it's easy to see why her prosthetic limbs would be a target, but then it would also make sense to eBay them to someone who needed a cheap limb. However, the last time this happened (when only one limb was taken), the stolen limb was discovered in the teenager's backyard a few months later. This can really only mean one thing: the limb was stolen for temporary kicks, pardon the pun.

And if you thought prosthetic limb fetishes were bizarre, think again. In Wisconsin, a man faces three years in prison for a huge burglary spree. Did he steal money? No. He stole dozens of doorknobs, apparently to feed his growing doorknob obsession. However, he tried to be clever by stealing lots of other materials at the same time to disguise the fact that he was really after the doorknobs. Cunning, very cunning.

Swiftly moving on from knob-obsessed men, in Illinois, a mother decided to leave her 2-year-old son in her van whilst she did a spot of shopping. She also left the engine running. As a result, the toddler managed to work his way into the driver's seat and put the car into drive. The van coasted through a car-wash and two panels of fencing before hitting the side of a house. The boy was left unharmed. I don't know whether to applaud the intelligence of the child or scorn the intelligence of the mother. You just don't leave babies in automatic cars; it's just stupid.

Finally, from the very young to the very old, we move on to Ohio, where two 60-somethings decided to get married at the same place where they mourned their spouses. Oh yes, this crazy couple decided to marry in the funeral home where they both attended a grief support group. Maybe they wanted it to be sentimental, or maybe they just enjoyed the atmosphere of death and mourning. Whatever it was, it made them fall in love, and the couple had a very pretty wedding with both a harpist and a flutist playing together. The world is indeed a beautiful place. Especially the good ol' US of A. As their beloved president, George Bush might say, we clearly misunderestimated them.