News of the Weird: Funeral home plans to keep spirits up

From the “What could possibly go wrong?” file, an Ohio funeral home soon might be able to serve alcohol to grieving families. Evergreen Funeral, Cremation and Reception, in Columbus, applied for a liquor license and could be serving booze within a month, ABC-WSYX reported on Dec. 16. Evergreen’s owner, Hunter Triplett, said he wants to shed the funeral industry’s dark, morbid reputation. One way to do that? Let mourners raise a toast to their lost loved ones. “My role in this position is to kind of be a party planner for the dead,” Triplett said. If approved, the facility would receive a D3 liquor license, which in Ohio allows the sale of beer, wine and hard liquor for consumption on-site. “RIP” soon might have something in common with “DUI.”

Do you remember your fourth grade lunchbox? Tracy Drain of Virginia is getting reacquainted with hers. It went missing 40 years ago and was found in early December by a plumber, who discovered the vintage Heathcliff-themed memento in a pipe case while he was working at Fairview Elementary School in Roanoke. A tag inside was adorned with Drain’s name, and a former co-worker of Drain’s reached out to her after reading about the lunchbox find in a Facebook post from the Roanoke City Public Schools. Drain told WDBJ-7, “I’m definitely going to treasure it because of mom’s writing on it and the way she took care of us as kids and how she raised us.”

Young students at Lee-on-the-Solent school in Hampshire, England, were traumatized in mid-December after the Rev. Paul Chamberlain, who was at the school to conduct a religious education class, veered off topic, The Guardian reported. The vicar told the kids that Santa Claus is not real and that their parents buy the presents and eat the treats left out for him. Some students started to sob. “Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgment, and he apologized unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children,” said a spokesperson for the Diocese of Portsmouth.

An unnamed man in Wheat Ridge, Colo., allegedly caused a multi-vehicle crash on Dec. 4, KKTV reported. When officers arrived, they asked him how many drinks he had consumed, to which he answered, “I’m gonna tell you right now, like, I’m a professional drinker.” Police administered a breathalyzer test, which showed that the man’s blood alcohol content was more than four times the legal limit. He was charged; no one was hurt in the accident.

Commuters in Samut Prakan, Thailand, were flummoxed upon arriving at a newly renovated bus stop, Nation Thailand reported on Dec. 7. The floor of the stop was concrete, which had been poured up to the bottoms of the seats, causing riders to sit on the ground. While the contractor has acknowledged the mistake and vowed to fix it, online commenters have had a field day: “Designed for people to sit Thai-style, neatly and politely,” one said. “I love the concept behind this work,” said another.

In El Dorado County, California, a horse fell through a narrow opening in the floor of an abandoned grain silo and into the structure’s basement. (Who knew that grain silos have basements?) In any event, United Press International reported on Dec. 17 that El Dorado Search and Rescue used a pulley system to hoist Matsie the mare out of the basement, after which she was “reunited with her family and friends.” To which she reportedly responded, “Neeiiiiggghhhhh.”

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