It must be true... I read it in the tabloids

A panicked Ohio woman called 911 to report that her 5-foot-long boa constrictor had wrapped itself around her head and was biting her nose. “I have a boa constrictor stuck to my face,” the unnamed 45-year-old woman said. “I’ve never heard of this one before,” the 911 dispatcher responded. Firefighters arrived at the woman’s home to find her lying on the driveway with the serpent coiled around her neck. They couldn’t pry the boa off her bleeding nose, and had to cut its head off with a pocketknife to free her. The woman, who owns 10 other snakes, was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

A British man totaled his brand new Ferrari only an hour after driving the $260,000 sports car out of the dealership. Police said the Ferrari 430 Scuderia careened off a wet highway and “went airborne,” rolling 160 feet down a bank and bursting into flames. The driver walked away with a few cuts and bruises. Looking at the smoldering wreck, officers asked the man what sort of car it had been. “He replied, ‘It was a Ferrari,’” a police spokesperson said. With “a sense of damaged pride he then said, ‘I’ve only just got it, picked it up an hour ago.’”

A German man fed up with congested roads has found a new traffic-free way to commute to work: swimming 1.2 miles along Munich’s Isar River. “The traffic is so wild,” says Benjamin David, head of a small think tank. “When I’m swimming, I am quicker and also more relaxed.” Every morning, David packs his suit and laptop into a waterproof bag and then swims to his riverfront office. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he says, “if in a few years [swimming] becomes a logical way to commute to work.” ■