LICENSE AND... REGISTRATION?

Doggo Under the Influence

It was late one Saturday night and Houdini and his trusty dog were driving around a little Colorado town called Springfield. Houdini had been driving from Las Animas to Pueblo but got lost and ended up in Springfield. Evidently he was impatient to get out of there. Not that I blame him, really, because I doubt that a town of 1,300 offers much that would interest a young man and his canine—but it’s not so easy to excuse going 52 mph in a 30 zone.

It didn’t take long before a police cruiser pulled him over. As the officer approached the car, he watched the following happen in full view: Houdini leapt into action, unclipped his seatbelt, and slid over into the passenger’s seat—where his dog was sitting. At the same time, he ushered Doyle across him into the driver’s side. Unlike his owner, Doyle is a Very Good Boy so he obediently swapped places. Houdini then proceeded to get out of the passenger side and explain to the cop that he had not been driving the car.

It’s at this moment that the police department’s Facebook post really fails us. Did Houdini earnestly try to persuade the cop that the ever-patient Doyle (I’m picturing him as a sweet, slobbery bulldog) was responsible for going nearly double the speed limit in his shitty car that, we’re just guessing, has a muffler you could hear a mile away? Houdini “clearly showed signs of being drunk and/or under the influence of drugs,” the news reports say. Like, other than claiming his dog could drive a car?

We don't know, but when the cop questioned him about being drunk, Houdini did what any self-respecting magician would do. He utilized his disappearing act. In this case, that means he ran about the length of a bowling lane before the cops caught up and arrested him.

Houdini was placed in jail facing a variety of charges, however ingenious his sleight-of-hand. Doyle, meanwhile, was temporarily placed with “an acquaintance” of his owner, so we hope he’s well taken care of. In a slightly creepy attempt at humour, the PD’s post mentions that “the dog does not face any charges and was let go with just a warning.” As he should have been! We don’t joke about good puppers getting punished for their humans having, um, overactive imaginations.

CHUG CHUG CHUG!

He’s Crushing It

If whoever makes Orange Crush would like to sponsor this content, we can be reached via the LemonsLemonsLemons Instagram. Okay, with that out of the way…

Picture a big ol’ black bear, who shall be referred to as Mr. Thirsty Boi. He had recently emerged from his long hibernation and was wandering past a house in rural British Columbia when he happened to smell something unbelievably sweet. He smelled…Orange Crush. A lot of it. The only problem? It was inside a van.

Surprise! That wasn’t really a problem. Between not having eaten in seven or eight months, and smelling that irresistible syrup/glucose-fructose cocktail, Mr. Thirsty Boi’s brain was basically a five-year-old at a birthday party. So he did what any bear in his situation would do: He broke in through the van’s window, chomped into the soda cans, and drank those suckers. After the Orange Crush, he moved on to the root beer and cola. After drinking precisely 69 of these assorted drinks, he lost interest upon trying the diet soda, for which we have to credit him some taste.

Meanwhile, the van’s owner, Sharon Rosel, was roused around 3:00 in the morning to the ravenous, hedonic, slobbery sounds of a bear devouring her case of beverages. She went on to try anything she could think of to get him to go away. First, she tried startling him away by throwing water from her balcony. Then, she turned to pleading: Please stop! She needed that car to get to work! No response.

"Then I tried psyching him out by telling him I was a bear hunter,” Rosel told the CBC. “That didn't do anything either.” Well, obviously not. How many bear hunters go around telling bears what they are? It’s a dead giveaway that you’ve never hunted anything. Ultimately Rosel just had to watch Thirsty Boi destroy the van’s interior with sticky pawprints before lumbering off with what we imagine must have been one hell of a sugar rush. If anyone finds a creamsicle-smelling bear in the region, for goodness’ sake, just give him a soda or 10 and hope he’ll spare your vehicle.

KING OF THE CASTLE

This Party’s On Fire

James Balcombe used to run a profitable party-supply business outside of Melbourne, Australia, in the delightfully named suburb of Kangaroo Flat. But for him, it was never enough.

From what his lawyer would go on say, Balcombe became consumed by his desire to become the #1 bouncy-castle tycoon in the city. Within a few years of pivoting into the bouncy-castle market, he and the owner of another similar business started throwing accusations that the other was copying his business. The intense stress of renting out inflatable entertainment devices for kids was proving to be just too much!

Balcombe coped with his emotions in a way not frequently recommended by executive coaches nor therapists. He hired three dudes to sabotage his rivals’ party businesses (ranging across five other communities) by throwing molotov cocktails into their buildings. For the most part little damage was done, but one business, tragically, was completely destroyed by fire.

After that, Balcombe got nervous that he was attracting suspicion. (Whaaat? Just because bouncy castles are going up in flames left and right, except yours?!) In a truly self-owning about-face, he abandoned his own factory, and got his thugs to attack it, resulting in his business’s complete destruction. He was arrested mere days later, but got out on bail. In Walter White parlance, he paid a visit to the vacuum store and disappeared.

However, he couldn't bounce his way out of this one forever. The police caught up with him a couple of years later. He'd been living in Perth, using an alias and selling counterfeit postage stamps. We can only wonder what kind of scams he’ll get up to in prison.