On my first day in a job as a scientist studying insect pathology, I knocked over the beaker of alcohol. I was about to mop up when I saw the back of the cabinet start to melt. I realised there was a fire (alcohol burns invisibly). I grabbed the extinguisher and blasted the cabinet with CO2. Luckily I saved the lab, but for the next three years at the company I worked with a cabinet with a melted back. I'm now a gardener."
Bad placing
Jenny and Steve Bridges of Grey Lynn were holidaying in Tauranga last week and caught up with the local news in the Te Puke Times. They note the newspaper doesn't seem to be in favour of talking to God.
What is a true personal story people have a hard time believing? Marcia Jones writes on Quora.com: "When I was 5 I was in a restaurant with my mum and brothers when I saw this man across our table. I just couldn't stop looking at him, thinking to myself that I really knew him. I finally told my mum and I ask her who that man was. When she saw him, she was gobsmacked; he was the obstetrician that had delivered me. Basically he was the first human being I ever saw. After that moment, my birth, I never saw him again. But somehow I recognised him! My mum went to talk to him, he remembered my mum as I was the only red-hair child he has ever delivered [in Brazil]."
Donald, where are you?
"I'd like to reunite Donald with his 21st memento found on top of a city recycling bin in Cook St," writes Paul. "It's inscribed on the back by countless friends and family including Uncle Peter Maxwell, Auntie Suly and cousin/ brother by the same name, Matiu. Based on his birthday event having been on February 2, 1991, Donald must be 46 by now." Contact Sideswipe to arrange safe return.
Too much weed
Wangaratta a rural town in Victoria, Australia has been submerged by masses of tumbleweed. Residents have reported getting trapped inside their homes, as they struggle to deal with the Panicum Effusum - or as it's aptly nicknamed, hairy panic - piling up on lawns, driveways, roads, and blocking doors and windows. To truly get a sense of what the community is dealing with, here's a clip of a local trying to blow apart the weed with an industrial leaf blower.
