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Mike Pingree

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November 10, 2002

THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL: Every month, hundreds of people fall for the Nigerian letter scam in which a conman emails the unsuspecting and asks for help in transferring $18 million from an African bank.
In return, he promises to pay a $4.5 million fee, then asks for money to cover unforeseen costs and expedite the process.
Expecting to receive a big payoff, a California legal secretary embezzled $2.1 million from her law firm over a six-month period and sent it to various offshore accounts. There was, of course, no payoff. She was arrested.

BLAM! OUCH! BAD DOG! BAD DOG! A hunter seeking pheasant in the woods of western South Dakota was shot by his dog, Sonny.
The man had laid his loaded 12-gauge shotgun on the ground, and the animal stepped on the trigger, hitting his master in the right ankle.

IN OTHER WORDS, A USEFUL WOMAN: Stu Burt, owner of a bar in Wanaka, New Zealand, is looking for the perfect woman and he is holding a contest to find her.
But apparently, a New Zealander's view of the ultimate female has nothing to do with beauty. Contestants must change a tire, mend a fence and back up a car towing a trailer full of hay bales and then stack the bales.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A woman had been keeping a large number of cows in third-floor apartments of a building in Trabzon, Turkey. After years of strenuous complaints by her neighbors and an order by health officials to remove the animals, she finally sold them.

JUST A COINCIDENCE: A Tennessee county commissioner cast a key vote to appoint a man to a court clerk's post. Soon after, the new clerk hired the commissioner's former wife as an executive secretary, and she became a legend at the court because the only time people saw her over the next six weeks was when she came to collect her paycheck.
An investigation has been launched, and all parties deny any link between the key vote and the hiring.

Mike Pingree writes another Looking Glass column in the Boston Sunday Herald. You can read it by clicking here:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists.html

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