Editorial: Casual Fridays

A smashing time

On Sunday, vandals in Reno, Nevada, hit Angelique Ybarra’s car — with a watermelon. The watermelon smashed through her back windshield and cost her nearly $1,000 in out-of-pocket repairs.  The “waterfelons” also hit Ybarra’s car in July, again with minor damage. The juicy case has remained unsolved for several months, but police members from Reno 911 think they are have found new seeds of evidence.

Caught red-handed

A Pennsylvania man landed himself in the hospital and then a prison cell after a failed “cut and run.” David Lee brought a knife to his Walmart heist when he removed a Straight Talk Wireless phone from a shelf — but the burglary wasn’t so cut-and-dry. When Lee later attempted to remove the phone from its packaging, he ended up stabbing himself in the arm. Store employees noticed the bloody trail before Lee ran off to a local hospital. Local staff took a stab at taking care of the wound, but it was so severe that Lee had to be flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. His efforts weren’t entirely fruitless, as he finally got his one phone call and some time on his prison plan.

This week in Florida

Brooksville, Florida, resident Nickole Dykema was struck by the long arm of the law but not before she tried to strike police officers with a machete. Police were called to the Florida home after Dykema’s neighbor complained that Dykema, who apparently has no chill, had slashed her window screen and air conditioner. Once police forced themselves into Dykema’s home, they found more than 3,500 machetes, swords and knives hung up on her walls and arranged around a satanic shrine. After discovering that she was on probation for shoplifting knives from a dollar tree store last year, deputies cut her off from owning weapons and took her into custody. At least in the criminal system, Dykema has a friend in the cell phone bandit.

Carving the waves

On Sept. 5, Todd Sandstrum spilled some pumpkin guts to raise awareness for agriculture. In an act oddly reminiscent of a fall Starbucks commericial, Sandstrum paddled an award-winning 817-pound pumpkin down the Taunton River in Massachusetts in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record. The stunt actually turned out to be the latest Starbucks commercial — pumpkin spice season is officially here. Todd and his pumpkin are also starring in the new fall classic, “Jack and the giant pumpkin.”

Bright diamond, dim idea

Last Thursday, a Chinese woman visiting Bangkok had a rough ending to her trip. That Thursday night, police arrested Jiang Xulian and her male travel companionan in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport when surveillance video from a jewelry fair revealed that the couple had not-so-sparkling personalities. They were accused of switching a fake stone for a $278,000 diamond earlier that day. Police were perplexed when the diamond appeared to have disappeared, until an x-ray revealed the diamond unglamorously habitating in Xulian’s large intestine. The doctor confirmed their suspicions when he successfully removed the diamond on Sunday. The couple learned a valuable lesson — crime leaves a bitter aftertaste, and there are some things pepto bismol can’t solve.