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The skinny

By Times Wires
Published October 17, 2007

A tux and a suit

She wanted pink, got rust, and sees red

Elana Glatt envisioned beautiful arrangements of pink and green hydrangeas at her wedding. So when the flowers showed up, and they weren't pink and green, but rust and green - ew! - the New York lawyer really didn't see any alternative but to sue. And since she paid actually, her new mother-in-law paid $27,435.14 for the stupid rust flowers, she figured that it made sense to sue for, say, $400,000. The florist, Stamos Arakas, says that he told Glatt the colors might not match perfect and that he has learned a lesson. "My father used to tell me, 'Don't deal with the lawyers,'" Arakas said. "Maybe he was right."

Locked up

Witnesses gallantly watch key theft

The city of Frederick, Md., decided to celebrate its connection to The Star-Spangled Banner author Francis Scott Key by getting artists to paint 30 gigantic keys - get it? - and place them around downtown before auctioning them off to benefit the arts council. So of course, the 6-foot installations immediately became targets. Four men have been arrested on charges of stealing one painted in a stars-and-stripes motif. Police were able to crack the case because the men smiled and waved at witnesses as they loaded it in a pickup truck. And it was found at a house where three of them live. Police are still looking for one painted to resemble Maryland's flag, and 10 others have been vandalized. "It's mostly goofy people who are drunk, usually, and it's something new for them to mess with," Officer Rebecca Huegel said.

Potty mouth

Woman finds what you can't say in can

Dawn Herb of Scranton, Pa., faces 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300 because of foul language. "It doesn't make any sense. I was in my house. It's not like I was outside or drunk," Herb told the Times-Tribune. Not just in her house, but in her bathroom. The toilet was overflowing, and she was upset, and the window was open, and apparently sound carries pretty well over to the house of her neighbor. He's a city cop, who called his colleagues and had her charged with disorderly conduct. Herb said she doesn't remember exactly what she said, but she was standing over an overflowing toilet, so we have our guesses.

We're doomed!

World is ending: What do you do?

Last week, the folks behind a movie about the Ten Commandments released the results of a poll about how no one knows them. This week, a publishing company in England released the book Cloud Cuckoo Land, in which an impending meteorite crash threatens the human race. So they wanted to know, what would you do if you knew the Earth was going to be destroyed in 60 minutes? Here are the top six answers:

54 percent: with (or on the phone with) loved ones

13 percent: sit back and accept the inevitable

9 percent: have sex

3 percent: pray

2 percent: eat fatty food

2 percent: loot (looting was probably chosen mostly by people not on board with the concept of the world ending.)

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster, who can be reached at jwebster@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 17, 2007, 00:31:42]