2019- THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART II

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-09-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

2019- THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART II
These are the essential true stories that you'll need to carry on in the new year. So stick them in your carry on bag, store them in the overhead bin and prepare for takeoff, but remember, contents may have shifted.

GRANDMA GIVES BIRTH SO HER GAY SON CAN HAVE BABY
In Nebraska a 61 year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl using her son's sperm and an egg provided by his husband's sister. Guess what, I have two Dads and my Mom is my Grandma. My sister is my Aunt. Just kidding about the Aunt, she might also be my Mom. If this kid doesn't grow up to be incredibly maladjusted it won't be for lack of trying. I'm sorry if you can't get on Ancestry.com, but the site is broken right now.

LIONESS STEALS PHOTOGRAPHER’S CAMERA AND GIVES IT TO HER CUBS
A wildlife photographer taking pictures of a pride of lions in Botswana dropped her camera and a lioness picked it up, ran off with it and gave it to her cubs, who immediately used it to open an Instagram account. "Here I am with NO MAKEUP! You can't hide those lion eyes hahahaha! Hey, does this wildebeest make me look fat???" By the way, it's probably unethical to re-gift something to your kids that you stole in the first place. What kind of message does that send to the cub reporters of tomorrow?

AMAZON PREVAILS IN DOMAIN NAME FIGHT WITH THE ACTUAL AMAZON
Amazon.com has won the right to use the .amazon domain name, after a lengthy dispute with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, which represents the countries that the Amazon River actually flows through. They argued that the name should belong to them, since as I mentioned they have the actual Amazon. Amazon.com said cry me a river and sued. Negotiations had broken down when a lawyer from Brazil showed up with an anaconda and slipped three piranha into the Amazon representative's coffee. Whereupon the Amazon representative boxed up the Latin American official with some bubble wrap and shipped him to Patterson, New Jersey, where he arrived in two days for FREE!

DOCTORS IN INDIA STUNNED BY BABY BORN WITH 4 LEGS AND 3 HANDS
A 24 year-old Indian woman gave birth to twins, one of whom was perfectly normal, and the other who had possibly absorbed the limbs of a potential third fetus. This is a story that I don't actually believe. I believe that the baby was born with four legs and three hands, but what I don't believe is that doctors in India were stunned by it. So many weird things happen in India that this probably doesn't even push the needle into the "unusual" category. In India, policemen are paid extra if they have a mustache and store owners hang chili peppers from the doors of their shops to avoid being seen by the "evil eye." Incidentally, what are the chances that even as a baby, this person can beat me at doubles tennis. I'll get the last laugh at dancing though, since the baby has two left feet. Doctors noted that they are confident that the extra limbs can be safely removed.

GUY ACCIDENTALLY BLOWS UP YARD TRYING TO KILL BUGS
A man in Brazil poured gasoline into a hole he made in his lawn, after his wife complained that she was scared of the roaches that had been invading her garden. He threw a couple lit matches in, and BOOM- not only were the roaches still alive, but now they were flying, raining down like a plague from the book of Exodus. Since roaches have been around since the Carboniferous period, It's doubtful that blowing up one's lawn is going to get rid of them. How do you think the Carboniferous period got its name? Further, If I had known that I could blow up my yard by accident I would have had the accident on purpose.

NORTH KOREA’S KIM SENDS CONDOLENCES TO MOON OVER MOTHER’S DEATH
I just like the headline, because if you don't know that the South Korean leader's name is Moon, it makes Kim Jong Un seem like he might have literally gone too far this time.

BALD EAGLE TRIES TO SNAG OCTOPUS
Salmon farmers in British Columbia saw a bald eagle swoop down and try to grab a pink octopus out of the Quatsino Sound. Instead, the octopus grabbed the stunned raptor and tried to pull it under the surf, until the salmon farmers were able to free it. Even after seeing the whole incident on video with my own eyes, I still couldn't believe that an eagle would be that interested in a pink octopus, or that an octopus could capture an eagle, or that an octopus might be pink in the first place, or that salmon knew how to farm, or that they could talk. After witnessing the entire event I felt like sending condolences to the Moon.

PIGEONS IN COWBOY HATS SEEN ROAMING LAS VEGAS
Why the pigeons are wearing cowboy hats is so far anybody's guess. The rodeo is in town, but went out of its way to issue a press release saying that the pigeons are in no way connected to their operation. Which means that they just rode in by horseback on their own. I work in New York City, there are a lot of people there elbowing each other out of the way, and the only thing I like less than pigeons are those horse carts that are now trying to clutter up my bicycle lane. So pigeons, if you're out there, anything I have to say to you goes double for the horse you rode in on.

Happy Holidays to all, and here's wishing your new year AND your vision are 2020!