ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Dog that ate BBQ skewer wins award for most-unusual claim

PRINCETON, W.Va.

A dog that ate a barbecue skewer has won a national competition for most-unusual pet-insurance claim.

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph reported that the 5-year-old Boxer named Curtis beat out 11 other pets in online voting for Nationwide’s Hambone Award, named in honor of another dog that ate a ham while waiting to be rescued from a refrigerator.

Valerie Mould of Princeton says Curtis ate the skewer during her daughter’s birthday party in 2014. Curtis was taken to Virginia Tech’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, but doctors couldn’t find the skewer. Curtis was sent home, but returned to Blacksburg a few months later. This time, veterinarians found the skewer when they operated to remove a baseball-sized mass between the dog’s stomach and pancreas.

Curtis is doing fine.

Pastafarian gets to wear strainer on head for photo

BOSTON

A Massachusetts agency is letting a woman who belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wear a colander on her head in her driver’s license photo after she cited her religious beliefs.

Lowell resident Lindsay Miller said Friday that she “absolutely loves the history and the story” of Pastafarians, whose website says has existed in secrecy for hundreds of years and entered the mainstream in 2005.

Miller says wearing the spaghetti strainer allows her to express her beliefs, like other religions are allowed to do.

A spokesman for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles says policy does not permit head coverings or hats on license photos, but exceptions are made for religious reasons.

Lawyer Patty DeJuneas calls Pastafarianism a “secular religion that uses parody to make its point.”

Saudi Arabia cracks case of beer disguised as Pepsi

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

Customs officials in Saudi Arabia say they’ve cracked a case – and then some – of smugglers trying to bring illicit cans of beer through the kingdom by disguising them as Pepsi.

In a statement, customs officials say they intercepted 48,000 cans of beer moving through the al-Batha border crossing with the United Arab Emirates.

In video posted last Wednesday on Twitter, the customs officials show an officer using a box cutter to open a wrapped 24-pack of the fake Pepsi only to find the green-and-white Heineken cans beneath it.

Drinking or possessing alcohol is a criminal offense in the ultra-conservative Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Associated Press