Apparently, we live in The Age of Breaking News…to hear the TV networks tell it, there seems to be no other kind. This is a serious challenge for your smaller news organizations like The Flying Pie, which occasionally must depend on the kindness of strangers to discover newsworthy events and some not so newsworthy but funny to talk about. Fortunately for us, we have the services of ace reporter Kathleen Knight, who prowls the Earth for all of the above, compiles the particulars in her spartan News Cave and sends them in on an irregular basis. We just apply the frosting, put the icing on the cake and light the candle. Here’s the latest:
Exploding Manhole Covers Terrorize America
On April 21 of this year, a family in Poughkeepsie, New York had a close call from a new danger lurking in America’s city streets….the dreaded “exploding manhole.” The fam was strolling down the boulevard after a nice Easter egg hunt when suddenly a manhole exploded, sending a raft of scary concrete and other debris flying through the air.”I was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know where to go,’ it was awful,” testified grandma Lisa Davis, who dodged the flying detritus. “It just barely missed us. I grabbed up the grandkids and ran for the hills. I couldn’t really run straight ahead of me to the corner because the manhole there blew up, too.” At least three manholes joined in the chain reaction. Videos of the explosion show flying debris missing Davis and the kids by less than one foot. Firefighters responding to the call found high levels of gas in the craters left in the pavement.
Apparently, the Poughkeepsie blast wasn’t a one-time phenomenon. Current estimates suggest there are between 3000 and 5000 manhole events in the United States annually. In New York City alone, Con Edison reports over 2000 incidents a year with many being explosions. There is a famous 2014 video of a taxi driver being injured when a manhole cover flew through his window without so much as a fare-thee-well. In January, 2025, there were several internet videos of exploding manhole covers in Worcester, Mass. Other large cities have been the victims of similar blasts, perhaps occurring due to aging infrastructure and corrosion from road salt and gas buildup. Traffic vibrations, rodents biting wires and severe weather can also contribute to these incidents. Police advise caution in known manhole problem areas and “under no circumstances should pedestrians ever stand on manholes,” according to the National Safety Council (before it was dissolved by President Donald Trump, a notorious patron of chaos).
It’s Against The Law (Somewhere)!
Some of us think there are too many laws. Why should it be illegal to smoke agricultural products or dance naked in public or take your guns to town, Bill? As an infamous vice-president once said, “We have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.” It’s difficult keeping track of all these laws. A person could be doing something completely natural and the next thing you know the long arm of the law reaches down and plucks them up, which explains why your friends Pancho and Lefty are sitting in the calaboose merely for sucking down a few mushrooms. The Flying Pie has researched this sordid matter and come up with a raft of dubious crimes nobody knows about. Herewith:
1. In Alabama, you may not chain your alligator to a fire hydrant. We Floridians have no such foolish regulations, of course, since we are well aware that sometimes a person might need to go to the bathroom while walking his alligator. It’s the height of rudeness to bring your reptile into the lavatory, so measures must be taken. Under no circumstances, however, should an alligator ever be chained to a baby carriage.
Coincidentally, it is also against the law in Georgia to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole. This obviously makes far more sense.
2. In Minnesota, it’s illegal to cross state lines with a duck on your head. Well, you know those Minnesotans, always minding someone else’s business. That said, all ducks must be kept at eye level or below when entering or exiting the Dakotas, Wisconsin or Iowa. The law does not apply to people visiting Canada, where ducks are held in high esteem.
3. In North Carolina, it’s illegal to plow a field with an elephant. This makes no sense at all. Pachyderms are big and strong and perfectly cut out for the practice. The American Federation of Elephant Labor bemoans the loss of job opportunities for its constituents and has taken this foolish law to court.
4. In Connecticut, a pickle must bounce to be legal. No arguing with this one, which resulted from a 1940s scandal where disreputable vendors were selling bogus pickles, a heinous crime if ever there was one. Here you are ready to bite into your delicious peanut butter and pickle sandwich and UGH!---a rubber pickle rears its ugly head. Technically, if your pickle doesn’t bounce, it’s a cucumber.
5. In Arizona, it’s illegal to let a donkey sleep in a bathtub. Well, who would, you might ask? Alas, back in the 1920s, a careless asskeeper did this and the bathtub washed away in a flood, causing valiant but costly attempts at rescue. Not wanting a repeat of the shenanigans, the legislature put its collective foot down.
6. In Alabama (again), you can’t keep an ice cream cone in your back pocket. No, really. Apparently, back in the 1800s, horse thieves would steal horses by using cones to lure them away, claiming the horses followed them home and their mothers said they could keep them.
7. In Sarasota, Florida, you may not sing while wearing a swimsuit. No one can explain this one, but you know how fussy those Sarasotans are. Maybe the law is the result of a riot at a karaoke bar on the beach or some infidels wearing their swim togs to church. Nobody knows. But it’s the law.
8. In Oklahoma, making ugly faces at dogs is a crime. And punishable by a fine or even jail time if the face is particularly scary. “We like our dogs in Oklahoma,” said Odell Cox, of Enid. “If your pug gives you the stinkeye, just smile and toss him a biscuit.”
9. In Alaska, no pushing moose out of aircraft. Alaskan police want you to know they take this law very seriously, even though it only happened once. On that occasion, the moose pusher was extremely inebriated and fell out of the plane with the moose. “We don’t want this thing happening on a regular basis,” said Sergeant Ralph Preston of the Alaska Mounted Police. “It’s a real mess.”
If you happen to be passing through The Colony, Texas around 11 p.m. any night of the week and your fun options don’t look too perky, you might want to drive over to Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum at the Truck Yard brewpub. The Museum showcases the life work of Mr. Barney, who opened the place in 2019 when he was a sprightly 97 years old and it contains 1400 painted toilet seats of all descriptions. Barney passed on to his heavenly reward at age 98, but the toilet seats linger on. Smith opened his original museum in 1992 in a large garage in his backyard, garnering national attention and plenty of tourists. His impending retirement brought the Truck Yard boys into the picture. “I appreciated them wanting to put my work on display and to show the world what I did for 97 years of my life,” said Barney. I’d like to be remembered for how a person could save a lot of stuff that is being destroyed and showing there’s something you can do with it,”
The Truck Yard has picked up the ball and carried it down the field. One of their ads reads, “DON’T LET YOUR NEXT EVENT BE CRAPPY! Host your corporate event, birthday party or shindig in the Toilet Seat Museum, which can seat up to 60 people with additional standing room on the outside balcony.” The art, by the way, is fabulous.
“Quick, Robin---The Goatmobile!”
In dusty 1937, a Columbus, Ohio farmer anxious to emulate his more wealthy neighbors in possessing an easygoing conveyance created the Goatmobile. A.W. Nelson was short on assets but long on imagination, not to mention being the proud owner of one large he-goat. After considerable cogitation at the local alehouse, A.W. conceived the clever scheme of powering his new vehicle by hooking his goat up to a bottomless cage with four wheels; the cage would have a seat atop for the driver and a sort of steering wheel attached to the goat’s harness. (Alas, Mr. Nelson neglected to protect his brilliant idea by patent, leaving the invention open to manipulation by scurrilous fortune-seekers not averse to chicanery, so go to it all you knockoff artists.) The Goatmobile was born in an era marked by innovation and experimentation, a time of hardship fostered by the Great Depression. And well before the rise of the American Society to Prevent Conniving with Goats (ASPCG).
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Brussels, a couple of Belgian peckerheads were kiboshed by Nairobi police for trying to smuggle 5000 Kenyan ants out of the country, Oh, the shame! Teenagers Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, a likely alias, were given a choice of paying a $7700 fine or serving 12 months in prison for violating wildlife conservation laws. Authorities claimed the ants were destined for European and Asian ant markets (There are ANT markets? How about RED ants? Come and take a few thousand of ours, please) in an emerging trend of trafficking lesser-known wildlife species. Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court of Kenya’s main airport said the species included some valuable messor cephalotes, a distinctive large red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa. “These critters are all the rage with snotty European ant galleries,” she sniffed. Mr. Dennis Ng’ang’a, who was supposed to pick up the ants from the lawbreakers claimed he didn’t know ant traffic was illegal because many ants are sold and eaten locally.
Crazy Guys
You may not have noticed, but in the rolling hills outside Williamstown, Kentucky there is a massive wooden structure which looks a lot like the Bible’s description of Noah’s Ark. The thing is 510 feet long and 85 feet wide, lots bigger than your local football field, and is said to be the largest timber-frame critter in the world. The entire construct, including piers that raise the ark about 15 feet above the earth (like Noah’s) is about 10 stories tall. It even has cages in it just like the original. It’s sitting there because a crazy guy named Ken Ham decided it would be a good idea to build it. Snicker if you will, but even Zippy the Pinhead would have to admit Ken is having fun now.
“We wanted to show the feasibility of the Biblical account,” says Ham, a fervid Creationist. “We wanted to make our case that the story of Noah could really be true. We wanted to take people out of the modern world and into Noah’s.” Mission accomplished, Mr. Ken.
The awesome project cost Ham a salty $101 million, almost enough to hire Billy Strings’ band for the whole weekend. Don’t cry for him, Argentina, because he’s getting plenty of it back from zealots who want to savor Ark Encounter, the Christian Disneyland in the mountains. On Deck 1, you’ll be introduced to “the kinds of animals that were on Noah’s Ark,” including dinosaurs, pakicetids and a sort of long-necked giraffe. Um, Ken…about those dinos…
On Deck 2, you get to learn why God sent the flood, how Noah’s family cared for the animals, what ark life was like and how to load a T. Rex onto a boat (very carefully). You can also get your photo taken by the ark door, which features a picture of God’s salvation. If you’re in a big hurry, you can get a bird’s-eye view of the whole shebang by soaring past the ark on Zip Line Canopy Tours.
Not satisfied with a mere 510-foot ark, Ken is now building an enormous replica of the first-century city of Jerusalem, scheduled to open sometime in 2026 just south of Cincinnati. Now all you Reds fans can schedule the ultimate doubleheader. Unfortunately, however, due to circumstances beyond Ham’s control, the City of Jerusalem will have no major dinosaurs. As Emily Litella once said, it’s always something.
That’s all, folks….
