KEY POINTS:
One for the road: A story on Ananova.com tells of drunken woman who managed to stick herself to the road. Elena Pavlovna, 43, was staggering home and tried to clamber over surfacing machinery which blocked her path. In doing so, she toppled into a concrete mixer, which had been left on, and was twirled around for five minutes until she managed to pull herself out. Dizzy and dipped in liquid concrete, a weighed down Pavlovna fell flat on her back into the pool of drying asphalt. When the road workers returned from a lunch break, they found the woman unable to move.
* * *
Troy Stanton says the reader who found a large quantity of cash in the airport reminded him of the following incident. "I had come back to visit my family in Glenfield from Sydney and thought I'd renew my New Zealand licence, so I borrowed my brother-in-law's white Fiat and drove to Takapuna. As I went to return strangely the car wouldn't start. I noticed some women's magazines and other feminine touches and then realised I was actually in a white Suzuki. Embarrassed to have accidentally broken into a car I jumped out, found the Fiat and drove off. Later that day I received a call from the Takapuna police - yes I had lost my wallet. The contents? Um, about A$1000, NZ$800, and a solitary airline luggage ticket. Obviously a very honest, kind woman had found it in her car and handed it in. Only in New Zealand."
* * *
Kat Walsh recalls a prank from her scarfie days: "Knowing our friend Mohit's panicky tendency, two friends and I decided to set up his Otago University flat for a really spooky prank. Dressed all in black and with glowing paint on our faces and hands we upturned furniture, unscrewed lightbulbs and set another friend outside the window with a remote control to switch the TV on as Mohit walked in the door. The crowning element of our plan was to turn the shower on really hot and have steam drifting out the bathroom door and throughout the flat, creating the perfect mood for the three of us to jump out at Mohit in our scary attire. Unfortunately it was we who got the surprise when, having thoroughly hidden ourselves and hunkered down to wait, the steam set off the - really, really loud - fire alarm! And because we had unscrewed all the lightbulbs, we couldn't find the switch to turn it off!"
* * *
Not so much a prank as a malicious and criminal act: Jess describes a prank performed on flatmates as she was departing the living arrangement. "Due to my work I had access to some interesting bacterial cultures. I chose one that causes food poisoning, and placed it on some of their food. The flatmates had an interesting weekend with a huge bellyache, which they kindly blamed on the dodgy BBQ the night before."
